Chanukah and the Kassams (3 Year Aliya Anniversary)

A couple of friends of mine are big 'Birthday people'. You know the kind – there's a celebration on the actual day, a party that weekend and a joint party the week after.

While not begrudging anyone extra celebrations, I never really identified. So imagine my surprise when I realized that I have become the same – not a birthday person per se but an 'Aliya anniversary person.'

This year I've not only 'celebrated' both my Hebrew and English Aliya dates (first night Chanukah and Christmas day respectively).

I also spent the whole week telling everyone its 3 years since I moved here.

Back in December 2005, before my Aliyah, I wrote that if a place can make you cry - make you shout at the TV when a politician you disdain is speaking or produce pride that your country brings its boys home (even when you don't agree with it)… if a place can trigger those emotions - then how can you not live there?

3 years on, despite not waking up every morning with the Zionistic fervor of a swamp drainer, I still believe (as I wrote last year) that Israel remains the front line in shaping the Jewish people's future.

And as long as I can, I want to remain a part of it.

Yet living in a place that can make you cry can often lead to tears and frustrations (more frustrations than tears - I am a guy after all).

There's the rockets in the South which show no sign of abating;

The fear that initial successes in Gaza will be followed by the failures of Lebanon;

The continued, creeping erosion of the two state solution and our Jewish democratic state with it ;

Upcoming elections without the belief that change is possible;

and an increasingly quasi-Messianic minority who the State seemingly can't control.

Yet in the context of this darkness comes Chanukah, the festival of light, the victory of the Maccabees over Hellenists, of Jerusalem over Athens, of one way of life over another.

Their differing conceptions of how the world works is reflected in the story of how humanity gained the knowledge of making fire. Greek mythology tells of Prometheus stealing it from the Gods on Mount Olympus. As a punishment Zeus ties him to a rock and his liver is eaten (daily) by an eagle.

The Jewish myth (or Midrash for those who prefer) of human technological advancement explains that on the 8th day of creation (after Shabbat), God teaches Adam and Eve the secret of making fire.

For one, life is tragic, a constant battle against the will of the gods. For the other, life is about a divine-human partnership; towards bettering the world. It's about Tikva, Hope.

So as we finish lighting candles to brighten up our stormy nights, let's be strengthened by the idea that our Tikva – the one that guided us through the darkness of the past, and the one that continues to inspire Olim to make their home here – Od Lo Avda, is not yet lost.

Chanukah 5769: The Strong always in the Hands of the Weak?

You in your abundant mercy rose up in their time of trouble, delivered the strong in the hands of the weak, the many in the hands of few, the impure in the hands of the pure, the wicked in the hands of the righteous, and insolent ones in the hands of those occupied with Torah.

This past week I've been struggling with the meaning of the military victory of Chanukah.

On the one hand it seems clear; the few against the many, the strong against the weak, the good against the bad demonstrates that if justice is on our side we need to stand firm and fight.

However minimal our chances might seem, whatever the geo-strategic forecast, we need not compromise on our values, whatever the potential cost.

Because with God's help, we will be victorious.

Yet I'm still uncertain.

Because for every Judah the Maccabee who fought against all odds and successfully freed his people from an occupying empire (Greece), there is a Bar-Kokhba whose revolt against an occupying empire (Rome) ended in defeat and mass slaughter and expulsion.

And apart from the result, is there genuinely any qualitative difference between these two stories?

In addition, are these models really better than that of Yochanan Ben Zakai who, when faced with a Roman siege of Jerusalem, acquiesced to the temple's destruction and requested only the small town of Yavneh and its students?

When all is said and done, who can say when we should fight and when we should compromise?

And if we do fight, who's to know it will lead to a famous victory or a terrible defeat?

Jared Diamond in his book Collapse discusses the case of five small eastern European countries who were faced with the overwhelming might of the Russian / Soviet armies;

The Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians surrendered their independence in 1939 without a fight (a la ben Zakai);

The Finns fought in 1939-40 and preserved their independence (a la Maccabe's);

The Hungarians meanwhile fought in 1956 and lost their independence (a la Bar Kokhba).

Who are we to say which country was wiser?

And who could have known beforehand that only the Finns would 'win' their gamble?

The Akeida: Of Sacrifices and Paradigms

For years, the Left has said I'm Right and the Right has said I'm Left. I'm dyslexic to matters of Left and Right," said Israel Beiteinu MK Yisrael Hasson on Thursday, hours after he announced he would join Kadima and run in the faction's upcoming primaries. (The Jerusalem Post 6/11/08)

I don’t remember the first time I started having trouble with the story of the Akeida – when Avraham silently accepts God’s decree to take his one and only son (who he loves) and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. The event and the price paid for it (his wife's death and estrangement from both his son and God) is stranger still when one considers Avraham's previous argument with God over the fate of the city of Sdom.

What I do remember though is actively searching for a commentator arguing that Avraham had failed the test, that instead of agreeing, his job was to refuse; a parshan a la Kant who believed that a commandment which flatly contradicts morality can’t ever be from God, even if it seems that way; Someone who would affirm my intuition that there are certain sacrifices that we should just not have to make…that one’s family comes before all else.

The contrasting stories of Sdom and Akeida are adopted as paradigms for how we should serve God. Those emphasizing Sdom believe that moral autonomy is integral to religious consciousness and call on us to bring our subjective sense of dignity and justice into our relationship with God. Others who see the Akeida as the ultimate reflection of divine worship emphasize self sacrifice – that at its core, religion demands ‘heroic withdrawal’ from what we believe to be good and right in the service of the Divine.

As a modern Jew who values his autonomy and rationality I knew which model I preferred…

Then I read a fantastic article by Israeli educator Shai Zarchi (which I blogged about last year) on the comparisons between Avraham and the founders of the State who all made sacrifices for an ideal they believed in. I came across a beautiful Dvar Torah suggesting that however uncomfortable we may feel with Avraham, many of us, in our own small way, make sacrifices for, or coerce our children into the service of certain values. (Unlike me, my children will not be Israeli citizens by choice [with all the consequences and responsibilities that come with that]).

And while I still preferred the Sdom paradigm, I wondered whether a post ideological society unprepared to make sacrifices could ultimately survive.

Yet perhaps the most powerful idea on this hauntingly frightening story comes from the commentary of the Hasidic Rabbi Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica. For the ‘Izbicer’, the origin of the voice commanding Avraham is unclear and he must therefore look into his deepest self to understand what he should do. In the meantime, his test is to be able to act within the uncertainty of not knowing what the right thing is, to act without clarity in the face of ambiguity.

And I began to think that maybe the story comes to break the idea of a single paradigm; the concept that we can ‘model’ how to act before God in all situations – to always surrender ot stand our ground.

Because the reality we're faced with is more complex than overarching theories of right and left, on being able to rely on ideologies to tell us how to act.

And maybe in the face of such uncertainty the only genuine response is to be 'dyslexic'.

The Tower of Babel: Globalization and its Discontents

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech…. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar.

Once upon a time, major developments in technologies and computer software allowed individuals to connect with almost anyone on the face of the earth.

This web-enabled platform for sharing knowledge and work, irrespective of time, distance, geography or even language leveled the playing field and allowed people unprecedented access to information and knowledge.

As people experienced increasing global connectivity and interdependence in the economic, social, technological, cultural, political, and ecological spheres, the world began to integrate and grow smaller at an accelerated pace.

Every individual - created in the image of God - now had the potential to ‘plug and play’, join the global game and fulfill his potential. The genius born in China had as many opportunities as the average guy born in Poughkeepsie.

From Shanghai to Silicon Valley, from Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda, more people in more places could play in more ways.

The whole world truly was of one language, and one global speech.

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower…and said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them"

The opportunities for this new world were endless:

Furthering the fight against poverty and disease in the developing world;

Promoting children's education, women’s rights and proper working conditions;

Ensuring fewer people lived below the poverty line; that everyone had adequate shelter and access to safe drinking water;

That no one went malnourished or died from preventable diseases.

Yet this world of fantastic opportunities also provided fantastic dangers. As Nassim Taleb noted, Globalization 'creates interlocking fragility' A world in which the big can act small and the small can act big can be used for different purposes. The options are frighteningly endless…

And if rather than alleviating the suffering in the world, society decides to use its technological potential to 'make a name for themselves,' then a time will come when money (or bricks) are more important than people;

Or where the supply chain that facilitates Dell and Wall Mart will also facilitate Al Qaida and dirty bombs.

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

(Last Year's Blog on the Tower of Babel - On Towers and Totalitarianism)

A Time for Everything under Heaven

24/10 Jerusalem Post Livni: We've made final offer to Shas
24/10 BBC News UK economy braced for recession
23 /10 BBC News Obama: McCain will 'endanger' US
23/10 Ha’aretz Peres: Saudi plan can bring peace
23/10 AFP Israel okays more Palestinian police
11/9 Jerusalem Post Settlers gear up for evacuation fight

I don’t remember the last time I was both in Shul for, and concentrated during, the book of Kohelet, (Ecclesiastes) which we read on the Shabbat during the festival of Succot.

Without attempting to justify this sacrilege, it’s just so long, and all everyone wants to do is get on with the service (and there is really no need for it to be read out loud);

But this year was different:

I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with the book Collapse, which I’ve written about when discussing the Temple’s destruction on Tisa Be’Av and Teshuva on Rosh Hashana. It charts why societies who had once lived successfully die out arguing that the catalyst for their collapse was often not adapting to a new environment.

My favorite example were the Norse, who moved to Greenland from Norway and continued to raise cattle (even though the environment didn’t support it); They continued to spend money importing religious artifacts from Europe, even at the expense of food. They continued to boycott fish, because that’s what the pagan Inuit’s did.

They ultimately died from starvation…

The book’s conclusion – one Reut shares and bases its methodology on - is that maintaining one’s mindset and behavior when reality diverges creates a ‘relevancy gap.’ And relevancy gaps can lead to strategic surprises.

What worked in Norway, doesn’t necessarily work in Greenland.

A successful strategy in 1967 can be an abject failure in 1973…

What strengthens the state in the 40s, may destroy it 60 years later.

And in this context, what could be wiser than King Solomon’s statement from Kohelet, לכל זמן ועת לכל-חפץ תחת השמים – that to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Everything has its right (and wrong) time. “There is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time for silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

There is indeed a time for everything…

A time for keeping Mitzvot and a time for ‘sinning at God’s behest’;

A time for child allowances and coalitional politicking, and a time for elections;

A time to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and a time to fight it; a time to build settlements, and a time to evacuate; a time to withdraw from territory, and a time to maintain the status quo;

A time for economic growth, and a time for recession;

A time to vote for ‘change’ and a time to choose experience…

But what happens when our kings are no more, and the heavens are silent?

And us mere mortals are unsure as to what actions the current time requires?

Rosh Hashana 5769: Values in a Changing World

London was great. It (generally) always is. Not that I think about staying – I don’t. It's just so relaxing (liberating even) to wander around the Heath extension near my parents home, to see friends, to take a break from the intensity of life in Israel.

England always takes a few days to get used to. For starters, there’s the driving on the left (with gears); There's more than one decent radio station to listen to. Weddings are the height of formality.

And then there's the politeness of other drivers (i'm always amazed by how much people wave to one another on the road) It's a reminder of how behavior encouraged (and sometimes necessary) in Israel is often incongruous with England's green and pleasant land - and what works in one place can get you in trouble in another.

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The week before I flew, Britain's Chief Rabbi wrote a weekly column, about the Biblical cities of Refuge; safe havens for an accidental killer who would be protected from the revenge of his victim's next of kin. According to Maimonides such a person is forbidden to leave the city under any circumstance – even to save someone’s life. In fact, even if the entire Jewish people need him, the individual is forbidden to endanger his own life.

The Chief's discussion of the differences between Judaism's prioritization of the individual versus the collective emphasis of Greece and Rome is worth a post in itself. But what most interested me was his suggestion that while this individualism aided the Jews in the Diaspora by preventing assimilation into the majority culture, it may undermine the successful building of a sovereign state (which inevitably entails the individual compromising for the benefit of the group).

In a similar vein, Avram Burg suggested that in the Diaspora, the Jews never trusted the system, and survived by going round it. Yet today, in Israel, when we are the system, people still try to circumvent it. We haven't yet fully internalized that it's ours. And when something is not yours, you never feel the need to fight to make it better.

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An article in Azure meanwhile described the corruption in Israeli society, arguing that in certain respects it "constitutes a natural, almost inevitable outcome of the ethos created by the early Yishuv."

It explained that the ambivalence toward the Law in early Zionism and the creation of the new Jew – the mischievous, rough hewn, anti establishment Sabra with an aversion to authority and inability to 'follow the rules' – had many positive aspects in the State's early years.

Yet 60 years on, this 'unruly, irresponsible and lawless behavior' is seriously undermining Israel's ability to prosper.

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The common denominator of each of these stories is that they involve values that ensure a group's (or individual's in the case of driving in Israel) survival in a certain situation.

Yet when left unrefined, they also undermine it.

And ironically, it's those very same values that initially help, that can ultimately destroy.

Circumventing the system worked in the Diaspora, but leads to 'combinot' when the system is 'us'.

Individualism aided us as a minority, but weakens national solidarity when we set the laws rather than following them.

And an Oleh who doesn’t re-invent himself or his values can become the ultimate freier.

In such a context, the only way to survive is by working out which values need to be kept, and which need to be changed.

And this for me is where the idea of Teshuva comes in…

Because what is Teshuva if not working out what part of ourselves we should aim to keep, and what we should discard? What is the month of Elul for if not reevaluating our lives, our values and our priorities, and seeing if they are still relevant in light of the changes we have gone through?

And what could be more important than ensuring the renewal and survival of our people, our country and ourselves?

Shana Tova LeCulam

Rosh Hashana Post 5768: A Message Against Despair

Rosh Hashana Posts 5767: Wanna Live Like Common People

On Leadership: Bartlet, Obama & Olmert

During an emotional speech last Wednesday, Israel’s Prime Minister announced his intention not to run in the party primary scheduled for September.

Despite a strong economy, low unemployment and improved personal security, Olmert remained largely unpopular, tainted by images of corruption and the mishandling of the Lebanon War.

2 weeks ago, Israel hosted another leader, who by January 2008 may well be the most powerful person in the world (not Gordon Brown). Obama is attractive because he offers something new and refreshing, a vision to inspire a mostly ambivalent electorate…a feeling that there is more to politics than soundbites, that individuals can make a difference.

The evening after Obama left was spent in one of the best ways possible – watching old episodes of the West Wing with friends. Out of all my favorite series’ - Heroes, 24, Spooks, Lost - only Sorkin’s West Wing is good enough to watch over and over.

One episode describes how the team forms around Josiah (Jed) Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen. Josh advises a leading democrat, but is frustrated by his lack of courage on policy. Sam slogs away at a law firm organizing insurance for oil tankers.

Both are looking for the 'real deal,' a candidate who stands for something more than just winning.

The die is cast when Bartlet tells a dairy farmer why he voted for a bill increasing the price of milk (check out the clip – its awesome).

'Today, for the first time in history, the largest group of Americans living in poverty are children...1 in 5 and they’re children.. I voted against the bill because I didn’t want to make it harder for people to buy milk.

I stopped some money flowing into your pocket, if that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if expect anything different from the President of the United States you should vote for someone else.'

At work, I’m part of a team dealing with Reut’s Strategic ‘Impact,’ based on a book by Harvard Professor Ron Heifetz called Leadership without Easy Answers.

Heifetz distinguishes between two concepts people often see as synonymous - Leadership and Authority. While Authority denotes those elected to positions of power, Leadership is something else.

It’s not about making people feel safe and secure, resolving conflict or being popular; that’s the responsibility of Authority figures.

Leadership, according to Heifetz, is often about causing discomfort, orchestrating conflict. It’s about the very difficult process of facilitating a change in the values, priorities and behavior of a society to be able to deal with new challenges...

All of which is a far cry from what David Grossman describes as our own “terrified, suspicious, sweaty, legalistic, deceptive” leadership.

So as Israel looks to appoint a new leader, is it too much to hope for someone able to cogently articulate a vision about what we stand for, about the future, about why the smart, educated people should stay rather than earn big bucks abroad?

In a country born from ideas and vision as well as blood and tears, do we not deserve leaders prepared to act in the greater good a la Bartlet, or explain the tough choices ahead a la Heifetz?

Is it too much to expect inspiration from the leader of a people whose entire history inspires?

So as discussions over who should replace our current authority figure start afresh, and the media and candidates resume their superficial spin and soundbites, the real question is whether we’ll find someone who believes in more than just winning…and whether the ‘real deal’ is to be found anywhere other than on TV…