It was disappointing, but not much of a surprise, when one of the American network correspondents summarized the huge prayer gathering in Jerusalem as an attempt by ultra-orthodox extremists to end democratic rule in Israel and replace it with a Teheran-style theocracy.

Let's forgive a few of the errors. We will not dwell on the fact that all groups of Israel's religious community - national/religious, Sephardic - fully participated, not just the haredim. So he wan't as astute as one of his colleagues who observed, "It was the kind of display of unity that led one to wonder whether the Messiah wasn't near, when a Gur and a Satmar hassid were seen rushing together bringing a chair for Bnei Akiva Rabbi Haim Druckman."

We will forgive the myopia that ignored the beauty and inspiration of the moment. How he missed the irony in such a unified statement of life's purpose by hundreds of thousands of Israel's citizens, while so many other Israelis struggle to find themselves. That he was not touched by the difference between the joyful Shma Yisrael recited in unison, and the carnival atmosphere at the counter-demonstration, which could find nothing to celebrate other than what they opposed, not what they stood for.

We will overlook the fact that the behavior of between three and five hundred thousand supposedly fundamentalist zealots was exemplary, with no violence and no arrests. Imagine a fraction of that number at a soccer match or rock concert in Tel Aviv. For that matter, imagine a Labor party caucus taking place with a modicum of the dignity these demonstrators showed last week!

We can forgive all these oversights. But how did he forget the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Teheran, it seems, is not the only place in the world where state religion is alive and well. England, has had it for centuries. At last report, British democracy is in no danger of succumbing to wild-eyed clerics.

State support for religion need not be anti-democratic. The British support their Church, but recognize the rights of other religions, and support them too, much as Israel allocates funds for Christian and Moslem groups.

Israel for the past fifty years has found a way for democracy and Judaism to coexist. No one is entirely pleased with the balance between them on those relatively rare occasions when they conflict, but the overwhelming majority of Israelis wish to live in a state that officially preserves a Jewish character.

So they live with compromise. The religious don't get everything they want; neither do the secular. The precise balance is determined the way everything else in Israel is - political clout at the ballot box. That is the way it should be in a democracy.

Until Aharon Barak, that is.

We Americans look to the judicial to interpret the law, and to legislatures to make it. Aharon Barak, Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, has found a way to do both at the same time.

Justice Barak wrote in 1992 that "in my eyes, the world is filled with law. Every human behavior is subject to a legal norm. Even when a certain type of activity - such as friendship or subjective thoughts - is ruled by the autonomy of the individual will, the autonomy exists because it is recognized by law." No American could hope to win a judicial appointment by arguing that every human activity - including the most personal and private ones - are subject to the oversight of the law. Big Brother in judicial garb is still Big Brother.

So why aren't the law faculties of Israeli universities upset? Sunday's demonstration makes the answer obvious. For while Chief Justice Barak happily churns out new policies from his bench, a disproportionate part of his activism is aimed at redefining the Jewishness of the Jewish state to agree more with his devoutly secular tastes. Those who share those tastes are not getting terribly outraged, when they are achieving what they couldn't in fifty years of political activity.

While the 1992 Basic Laws recognized Israel's commitment to both Judaism and democracy, Barak managed to transpose the former neatly into the latter. "The basic values of Judaism are the values of the state. I mean the values of love of man, the sanctity of life, social justice, doing what is good and just, protecting human dignity." Barak lists all the dividends that Judaism contributed to the world, but conveniently robs it of its soul, the practices that Jews lived and died for. No mention here of Torah, or the Sabbath, or the kosher laws, or any of the observances that kept Jews focused on their mission. By Barak's definition, Thomas Jefferson was a model Jew. So is the Pope.

Barak's vitiated Judaism leaves nothing sacred. Try to imagine a Supreme Court in the western world agreeing to hear a case to ban brit milah - circumcision - as a barbaric assault on an innocent child. The United States? France? Germany? Russia? Not any time soon. Yet if nothing traditionally Jewish has an automatic and irrevocable right to exist in the Jewish State, even this could come to pass. Could - and did! "It is inconceivable that the only country in the world to prohibit circumcisions should be Israel," argued Yehuda Shefer of the State Attorney's Office. But the High Court ignored his call to reject the petition out of hand. The next hearing of case No. 5780/98 is scheduled for the spring.

The inhabitants of the present state are far more traditional in their religious attitudes than their cousins in the United States, and have traditional views of what a Jewish state should look like, which is more today's Jerusalem than Monticello. So how does Barak get away with yanking a traditional Judaism from under their feet?

Simple. In the United States, the President nominates justices of the Supreme Court, but the Senate must approve these appointments. This assures the inclusion of a variety of points of view, and careful consideration of the credentials of candidates who will wield great power over the public. No such process is active in Israel . A committee of nine, including the President of the Supreme Court, two other justices, two members of the Knesset, the Minister of Justice and other representatives of the legal community make the choice.

In other words, it's an inside job. There are no open hearings, nor does the public have the opportunity to review the record and legal philosophy of the candidates. A liberal secular elite continues a self-serving tradition of choosing candidates from within its own ranks, to the consternation of much of the country. The committee was tolerant and inclusive enough to appoint an Arab justice, but cannot find even a single Sephardic Justice. (Sephardim, Jews of eastern and North African descent, make up a majority of Israel's population. Can you imagine an American Supreme Court with no African-American justice, if blacks would constitute a majority of our population?)

Some objective voices were heard above the din. Former President Chaim Herzog wrote: "In a democracy, according to Barak, the courts are placed above the government. In my humble opinion, this approach endangers, in certain cases, the very basis of democracy." Hebrew University Prof. Ruth Gavison, a director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel offered this: "No Supreme Court in the world has taken upon itself such powers… The judges of the Supreme Court represent a particular segment of Israeli society: Ashkenazi secular men. It is not clear why the entire Israeli society must live according to its dictates." And former Supreme Court Justice Tzvi Tal had this to say about the Court granting recognition to same-sex marriages: "When the Court must decide between individual civil rights and Jewish values, the former has until now been given the upper hand. This should not be so in a Jewish state… Judges who have not been trained in Torah cannot be sufficiently attuned to the central importance of the Jewish roots."

It turns out, then, that those strangely adorned folks who gathered on Sunday were not threatening the fabric of Israeli democracy, but actually calling for the addition of a good deal more cloth to it. Those who rallied in support of Barak were not celebrating democracy, so much as their new-found way to do an end-run around it.

As far as the coexistence of religion and democracy in Israel, please don't speak to American reporters.