It’s time to get over ourselves: The lessons of the Pew survey

Facts rarely shape or change our opinions. We prefer to select the facts that mirror and justify that which we already hold. The release of the recent Pew survey, A Portrait of Jewish Americans, with its treasury of facts and figures, has caused a tsunami among Jewish leadership and social media as we all scramble to locate the facts that can serve our preexisting individual or institutional purposes and cherished “truths.” 

This process has a celebratory and self-congratulatory feature. For example, many Israeli voices find in the survey the proof that they have been searching for to justify the Zionist claim of the unviability and unsustainability of Diaspora Jewish life. Some within Orthodoxy find evidence to the unviability and unsustainability of a liberal Judaism. Many voices within other denominations find evidence proving the superiority of their approach. The discourse around the survey invariably takes on a form of “I told you so.” When one frees oneself from one’s ideological and institutional loyalties, however, the survey provides important information and insight into the nature of our people and future directions which may warrant consideration.

One interesting fact exposed by the survey is the scarcity of movement from less to more observance. People leave their denominations to become increasingly Jewish without religion, but rarely increase their commitment to tradition with its consequent faith and required practices. The fundamental lesson to be learned is that we all have to get over ourselves. Whether our denomination or belief “fares better” in the commitment of its adherents to Judaism, raising children Jewishly, and to the State of Israel, it is simply irrelevant. The less or differently observant are not going to change, if change means accepting religious presuppositions and categories which are at present alien or absent in their lives.

Diversity is not the product of failed education or the lack of exposure of one group to the truth and beauty of the other. We differ Jewishly because as people we have different notions regarding the essence of our tradition, and different approaches to what makes a life, a life of value. The plurality of Judaisms which are evident, are the result of an ideological gap and not a lack of knowledge.

The fundamental challenge we face regarding the future vitality of our people’s Jewish identity and commitment is how to create ideas and experiences internal to each conceptual and ideological framework which are capable of garnering greater excitement and depth of commitment. In the end, “victory” will not be achieved through the withering away of those who disagree with me nor through the proven sustainability of my approach. As I said above, we have to get over ourselves. Victory will be attained when ever-increasing numbers of Jews, regardless of their affiliation or lack thereof, will feel more deeply connected and committed to their Judaism.

In this process, it is critical to distinguish between that which is a core and essential feature or reality of a particular Jewish ideology, denomination, or sociological classification and from that which is a current manifestation and expression alone. The facts which shed light on the latter provide insight for educational responses and new programmatic possibilities; the facts that shed light on the former obligate us to reshape our definitions of ourselves as a people.

Thus, for example, even if living in Israel, being Orthodox, or not intermarrying increases the chances of one’s children being Jewish, this is merely a statistical fact as to the new reality of contemporary Jewish life and not one with educational or programmatic significance. North American Jews on the whole are not going to move to Israel, abandon their liberal sensibilities, nor stop marrying fellow Americans who embrace them and want to marry them. These are not current manifestations of 21st century Jewish life, but ongoing and core features of this reality. The key question for the future of Jewish life is not whether one can change this reality, but what one must do to change the seemingly detrimental consequences of this reality for the future of Jewish identity. Accepting this is one of the greatest challenges of leaders and ideologues – to work within a given reality in order to improve it instead of fantasizing about shaping it in one’s image.

An interesting, important, and as yet open question is whether the move away from institutions and denominations as identified in the survey, is a new reality or merely a current manifestation. That Jews see Judaism and Jewish identity increasingly in terms that are less religious, I suspect is a reality. Here, paradoxically, North American and Israeli Jewry are becoming similar. The religious-secular divide of Israel is increasingly an appropriate lens with which to view North American Jewry as well. But as we have been learning here in Israel over the last decade or so, the categories of both religious and secular are neither monolithic nor one-dimensional.

For example, secular does not mean less Jewish but differently Jewish. While most secular Israeli Jews believe in God, the essence of their secularity is not determined by their faith but by the fact that they do not see in the worship of God and the rituals it entails, an essential part of their Judaism. Jewish secular Israelis can have a robust Jewish life which entails commitment to Jewish values, observance of the Jewish calendar and lifecycles, participation in Jewish culture and learning, and loyalty to the Jewish people and their well-being. Many of these features are or can be defining aspects of a future, vibrant, “less religious” North American Jewry.

The open question is whether Jewish institutions and denominations can adapt and continue to serve as important vehicles for deepening Jewish identity and connections. It is my hope that what we are seeing is merely a contemporary manifestation and not a new reality. Our institutions will require new thinking as they reimagine their roles, but I believe we will do a huge disservice to our future if we believe that we will be better served without them. The human being is still a social animal in need of community, particularity, and individual connections. We are still in need of partners, friends, services, assistance, guidance, and leadership at different moments of our lives. We still experience moments when a connection to our past is a source of strength and inspiration. An innovative and courageous educational, religious, and lay leadership are capable of providing the above, so long as we are open to rethinking the way we approach our tasks and define our goals.

One of the important features of our tradition’s understanding of Jewish identity is that it is a national one and not merely a religious one. One becomes Jewish through birth, conversion, or marriage and remains so regardless of faith and practice. Consequently, sociological data about the Jews are not merely descriptive but definitive as to who we are. Modernity and in particular, life in Israel and North America have changed the rules of the game. The question is how we are going to play.

By Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman - President of Hartman Institute, Jerusalem

On laws that must be broken

On laws that must be broken By Ilana Hammerman | Sep. 24, 2013 Haaretz

When laws are being legislated by a parliamentary majority whose express ideology is a system of injustice, these laws demand one response: Civil, nonviolent revolt.

"Legally mandated destruction." That is how Haaretz's editorial on Sunday described the destruction of the village of Khirbet Makhoul in the Jordan Valley. “The structures in question are unlawful and were built without construction permits. The structures were demolished in the wake of the Supreme Court’s rejection on August 28, 2013, of the petition that had been filed against their demolition.” That is how a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories responded to a report in last Friday’s paper on the destruction by Gideon Levy and Alex Levac.

For 46 out of its 65 years of existence, Israel has implemented military laws on an occupied civilian population; what is the law here and what is the High Court of Justice? And what is the validity of laws of this type and what is the word “justice” doing at all in such circumstances, which in international law were intended to be temporary yet have become permanent here, to the point that they’ve become the very essence of the State of Israel? After all the personal and collective damage to property and persons, which has been conducted systematically all these years on hundreds of thousands of people; these are serious, extreme violations of the law, also of the Basic Laws of the State of Israel. These basic laws, and even standard criminal law, are violated regularly, starting with denial of freedoms and ending with torture and killing. Many of these violations and crimes are done under the patronage of the High Court of Justice.

But there are very few Israeli citizens who think about this with complete seriousness and internal honesty, then reach the dire conclusion: These laws must be broken. Moreover, at this late stage of deterioration, when Israel’s laws are now being legislated by a parliamentary majority whose express ideology is this very system of injustice, then these laws demand one response: Civil, nonviolent revolt.

This rebellion cannot be carried out by the residents of the destroyed village of Khirbet Makhoul. They are without rights, without property, helpless before the orders forced on them with the power of weapons. They are few and weak against the many and strong. The citizens of Israel are responsible for the fate of the residents of the village of Khirbet Makhoul and the other Palestinian residents of the Jordan Valley, who have been harassed for years by the lack of permits for houses and schools, and the destruction of buildings that were built nonetheless; by the denial of the supply of water and by their expulsion - alongside the cultivation of the neighboring Jewish settlements, which are being built and are prospering under the auspices of the very same system of laws. The actions and reality that have been created are clear to see: Every Israeli citizen speeding in his car on Route 90 through the Jordan Valley can see it. Those responsible for the expulsion and destruction and the decree of annihilation by thirst on this burning region of the country are Israel Defense Forces soldiers - in other words, citizens of Israel serving three years as soldiers in its army and acting as the operational arm of the state’s political and legal institutions.

This is the logic of things and there is no other beside this logic, distorted and despotic: From the time it was set it motion, this logic has acted with enormous dynamism, moving forward unrestrained in front of our eyes. Only the blind and the brainwashed, and mostly those who do not want to see or know, place here on the other side of the scale the conflict between the two peoples and the right of the Jews to a sovereign state. For a long time it hasn't been so.

So despite the brainwashing from childhood through old age, Israel still has thousands of citizens who know this and their hearts are crushed. But with this knowledge they need not just to read with an angry soul the heart-breaking articles from the Levy and Levac’s "Twilight Zone," but to show up themselves there with their bodies. Not just one or two but hundreds of thousands must stand up there with determined spirits and empty hands to face the bulldozers and soldiers coming to destroy. To tell them: In our names do not do this. And if only the village of Khirbet Makhoul was an allegory: No high court of justice ever created was entitled to deny people the right to remain where they live and make a living, all in the name of the right of “firing zones" to be there instead.

A civil society that after so many years does not have people who are just and courageous enough to arise for such a civil rebellion - this is a society that is gradually losing its ability to defend its civil existence. And without that, it will not be able to survive over time. Many of us know that too, and are standing by the side. How have we become so spineless?

Yom Kippur Sermon 2013

שנה טובה,

¹⁵ “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, ¹⁶ in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in God’s ways, and to keep God’s commandments, statutes, and judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, ¹⁸ I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. Deuteronomy 30:15-18 (NKJV)

This is this morning’s Torah Portion – classic verses that convey the main narrative of our holy Bible. This portion is quoted on Yom Kippur as reminder that the world is symmetrical – doing  good, which is what God tells us to do – will be rewarded.  This is a recurring theme in the Bible and the Jewish prayer books.  This message establishes our expectation that there is a link between the way we live our lives – and the quality of our lives.  This may be the core and heart of the Bible – perhaps a stronger message than the belief in monotheism, the message that this world is marching to the drumbeat of reward and punishment.

However, this is not the only voice in our Bible. The Torah and the Bible do not speak in one monolithic voice; there are many beliefs and narratives expressed in our Bible, many ways to find your path to God.

The prophet Isaiah describes the relationship between God and the world with the following words: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things (Isaiah 45:7)

This verse has been incorporated in the prayer book, but it is the only verse from the Bible that is misquoted on purpose. The theology conveyed in it is difficult, the idea that God is not only the creator of the good but also created evil; the editors of the prayer book ‘corrected’ it to be: “who makes peace and fashions all things”.

פאוזה

For Isaiah, God created all, thus created also evil, Isaiah reminds us that believing there is only one God means that the one and only God is the source of all things, good and bad.

In light of this, we need to ask how can we worship the God that is also the source of all evil in our world? What kind of God are we praying to?

Monotheistic religions convey the message that God is a morally perfect deity. This is perhaps one of the basic, crucial assumptions of monotheism, that the commanding God is also perfect from the moral sense of point; this is why we succumb and accept God’s demands, and give up our personal, human sense of judgment. This is, assumingly the definition of religion.

As we might expect – this is not the only definition of our religion and our belief. Going back to the source, to the Torah, we can find voices that denounce God’s moral perfection, and contest God’s moral judgment.  Not only that – these voices are not heretics or blasphemy, rather these are profoundly religious voices. These voices express an authentic religious cry demanding God to see us as partners, believing that otherwise it will be bad for the world and bad for God, as we and God are profoundly morally imperfect and need each other’s help striving for perfection.

One exemplary story recounts Abraham contesting God’s decision to punish the sinners of Sodom.  After God declares the ruination of all Sodom’s people, women and children included – Abraham rebukes God and says: “Far be it from you to do such a thing--to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Genesis 18:25

This is a story where clearly the roles are changing – instead of God warning and reproaching Abraham – the reverse is happening.  Abraham teaches morals to God and attempts to convince him to spare the innocent.

A similar story is recounted later in the Torah, in relation to the story of the Golden Calf. God notifies Moses of his plan to annihilate the people of Israel as punishment for the worshiping of the golden calf – men, women and children.
As happened with Abraham – Moses too is arguing with God and says: Exodus 32:32

‘But now, please forgive their sin--but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."

Moses puts an ultimatum to God – forgive the people or I am not your partner any more, and God makes a compromise and pardons part of the transgression of Israel.

The Talmud refers to this controversy. It quotes God’s request to Moses to allow God to wipe out the people of Israel: Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation." Exodus 32:10

The Talmud quotes Moses answer: “Moses sought the favor of the LORD.’ ‘LORD," he said, "Why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?’” Exodus 32:11

The Talmud explains: Rabbi Abahu said: ‘Were this verse not written, it would be impossible to say it. This teaches that Moses seized the Holy one blessed be God, like a person who seizes his friend by his garment, and said to God, Master of the universe! I shall not release You until you forgive and pardon them!

According to the Talmudic narrative, Moses literally holds God from killing Israel.

Moses will repeat similar criticism when God will want to annihilate us after the sin of the scouts, and again in the story about Korach when Moses challenges God saying ‘will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins?’  (Numbers 16:22).

פאוזה

Jewish tradition has clearly created heroes who can argue with God and contest the righteousness of God’s decisions. This has radical implications – the Jewish theological center of attention has been moved over from God – onto us. The moral responsibility has been shifted away from God to human beings – and a true hero is one who can contest God, and won’t automatically abide to God’s will.

We would like to believe in what we read in the Torah this morning, a simple, symmetrical narrative of crime and punishment, good deeds and rewards.  A world were fulfilling God’s commandments ensures immediate rewards. But we understand that such a world doesn’t and cannot exist, a world when a mitzvah is immediately rewarded, and a crime is punished automatically.

 Only when we realize that God and the world God has created are far from perfect, we can start believe in ourselves, in mankind. Then, we can demand ourselves to take responsibility. Theodicy – trying to justify every act of God and everything God has created – actually takes away from us.  Taking responsibility is where the term ‘Tikum Olam’ has emerged – the idea that we are empowered, and it is on us, to make this a better world. The power is transformed from God to us, because I am dissatisfied with the world that God created, I have criticism on the world and on God. Only then I can help make this world better. This is what Hassidics call a Sacred Hutzpah – the guts to stand before God and ask for better terms, for a better world.

The Divine promise we read in the Torah this morning actually makes it harder to accept the world as it truly is and to understand reality. When we finally discover that God is not perfect and has created an imperfect world, then we can begin to cope with all the hardship in our lives and in our world and even try to make the world a better place.

 Let us pray for a Shana Tova, a good year – a year of success and health, a year of love and happiness, of prosperity and peace, Shalom. Let us make this world, and our congregation of friends and families, to be a better place, and let us say –

 Shana Tova!

Israel Should Allow Freedom of Jewish Faith to All - Is Israel Jewish Enough?

Israel Should Allow Freedom of Jewish Faith to All

Is Israel Jewish Enough?

Freedom to Choose: Israel won’t be truly Jewish until it allows all its citizens to practice religion as they see fit.

By Tamar Elad-Appelbaum

Published September 07, 2013, issue of September 13, 2013.

Last June, Jane Eisner participated in a private roundtable discussion at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem about Israel’s Jewish identity. What came out of the talks was the sense that Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora face a similar challenge — how to be a modern people in a modern world while holding onto ancient tradition. This is the continuation of that discussion.

Jewish life in Israel is often measured in quantities: How many Talmud pages did we conquer? How many mitzvot did we perform? How many times did we say “Baruch Hashem” in one sentence? How many Jewish children did we bring into the world? How wonderful is it that here in the State of Israel we have more yeshivas and rabbis than we ever had before, and more Jewish state laws than we ever dreamed of?

We live in a state of quantity, as if Jewish civilization is solely a matter of how much we do, as if quantities are a guarantee against the extermination of our ancient heritage. Is this true?

The accumulation of quantity, a known human weakness, is also an inevitable consequence of a miracle called Israel, where for the first time in Jewish history we exercise our heritage in the modern bureaucratic state, dealing with everything through the lens of the mass. Yet, essentially, to be truly Jewish is to engage in a higher quest: the religious quest to be personally called, to choose carefully one’s quality of life and then commit and practice it in community with others.

In order to make this choice of a religious life, one needs a will. A will that enables a person to choose to live rather than survive. In order to grow that will, one needs freedom. Freedom to question, to answer, to exercise different approaches to Torah and life, to find a place within the ancient covenant and commit, to add one’s voice to a nation ever-standing at the foot of Sinai and to hearing a voice.

The State of Israel might be full of people who were born Jewish, but as long as it doesn’t provide freedom to grow such a will, it is not yet a Jewish state.

I dread the thought that this magnificent moment in Jewish history might turn out to be a tragedy for the Jewish condition and its calling in the world. I dread the thought that Jews in Israel and around the world will count on the strength of what seems like an everlasting state, physically built, while neglecting, abandoning, an ancient trust in the transparent realm of theruach, the spirit, the deepest power in human life. The built State of Israel entered the delicate void of thousands of years yearning, and the task of this generation is to ask how we make way for the challenges of embodying ruach in Jerusalem. This is our task.

What we really need is to recuperate the natural instinct of freedom here in Zion. We can’t wait for the status quo to be changed; it will not be changed easily, and we are losing precious time, precious generations. In a world in which the new Jew is the Haredi Jew, what we need is to deepen the grassroots movement of Jewish freedom — individuals and communities exercising a Jewish life of their choice: marrying, celebrating, mourning, learning to translate modern autonomy of the individual into a life of shared values and deeds. We need more Jewish thinkers leading such a life; declaring that they do so; sharing their thoughts, practices; making way for others by their own quest to weave their unique personality into that of a community in its state.

“If Ben-Gurion, in the peak of his leadership days, would choose to go to a Reform community on Yom Kippur instead of sitting home, reading Spinoza or Aristotle, he could have given with his great authority legitimacy to another possibility of religious authority,” A.B. Yehoshua wrote in 1984. “There is no hope for real normalization of the Jewish people without deeply treating questions of our heritage. If we want to see a significant change in 100 years, we need to plan it now. We need to make sure that secular Jews are deeply involved in these questions…. Orthodoxy (as an ideology) does not want the change; the change will come only by creating new centers of Jewish authority.” And I, too, think to myself, if Shimon Peres, in the peak of his presidential days, would have asked for a blessing or prayer of six different Jewish (and non-Jewish, of course) leaders from different schools of thought in one evening, what a gate he would have opened to our people.

What I write here is a plea, that we demand every Jewish leader we know exercise and speak words of freedom, and continue to fight for state laws that enshrine that freedom. The coming 65 years should be dedicated to this pursuit of pluralism, and the more Jews involved, Israelis and partners from all around the world to whom this place belongs, the more of a chance we will have to live in a truly Jewish state.

Abbas has proven he's a partner for peace

With a series of important, courageous statements, Mahmoud Abbas has made clear that the Palestinians have a pragmatic leader who is offering Israel a chance not to be missed.

Haaretz Editorial | Aug. 25, 2013

The meeting in Ramallah on Thursday between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a Meretz party delegation once again underlined the fact that Israel does have a partner for peace talks. With a series of important, courageous statements, Abbas proved that the Palestinians have a pragmatic leader who aspires to a peace agreement and is willing to take meaningful measures in order to create a new and better situation in the region.

Abbas did not avoid any topic; he expressed clear positions on issues that are considered controversial. He emphasized that a Palestinian declaration of the end of the conflict would be part of the peace agreement. “People say that after signing a peace agreement we will still demand Haifa, Acre and Safed,” he said. “That is not true. Signing the agreement will signal the end of the conflict.”

The Palestinian president further clarified that in any peace settlement the Palestinian state would agree to be demilitarized. “We don’t need planes or missiles. All we need is a strong police force,” Abbas said. He even revealed that during earlier negotiations with then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there was an agreement to station American soldiers in the West Bank.

Abbas said the Palestinians would accept changes to the 1967 borders as part of land swap agreements, saying, “Let’s lay down a map and start marking the borders.” He also did not reject the possibility that some Jewish settlements could remain under Palestinian sovereignty after the signing of an accord.

Regarding the Israeli desire for an interim agreement, Abbas emphasized that while his goal was to reach a final agreement that would thwart the "various elements looking for ways to sabotage things and derail the process," he was "willing to implement the process in stages ... just as you did in the agreement with Egypt over the withdrawal from Sinai."

The positions laid out by Abbas underline the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must not treat the entire process as if it were a tax that must be paid to Uncle Sam. "We wanted the meetings between negotiating teams to take place every day or every other day, and not once a week or every 10 days like the Israelis want," Abbas told the Meretz delegation, adding that he had no objection to meeting with Netanyahu and claiming that no progress has been made in the talks so far.

"Without peace there will be tragedies here. There is an opportunity now. Look at what’s happening all around us. Everything is in turmoil. Now is the time to reach an agreement," Abbas said.

Netanyahu's silence must not be the response to these wise remarks of Abbas. The chairwoman of the Labor Party, MK Shelly Yacimovich, is also duty bound to give the prime minister the support needed to advance the peace process. Today there is a unique opportunity to reach a historic agreement.

Just be a human being

How can we reconcile the terror-filled daily lives of Russia's gays and lesbians with the 

celebration of sports?

By Ravit Hecht | Aug. 21, 2013 

The Russian parliament passed a law this year prohibiting “homosexual propaganda” among minors.
 This is a continuation of the aggressive legislation in various parts of Russia, for example a law the governor
of St. Petersburg signed in March, that coming publicly out of the closet as gay is a criminal offense. These
laws, even if they do not sentence gays and lesbians to death or imprisonment, are a crime against human
beings, which no individual or democracy-loving country can stand for. These are laws that crudely and
ignorantly differentiate between one person and the next, which confines masses of people to a limited
 existence, which automatically sentence a certain group whose only sin is the desire to choose who to
live with — to the shame of being second-class citizens.
That same Russia was the recent venue for the World Athletics Championships. The world’s best athletes
 showed off to spectators and viewers around the globe the wonders of the human body and spirit, which
constantly stretch the limits of their abilities. That same Russia is also to host the 2014 Winter Olympics,
which will attract hundreds of athletes and tens of millions of spectators and viewers.
How can the contradiction be resolved between the ordinary, terror-filled daily lives of Russia’s gays and
 lesbians and the extraordinary celebration of sports, which crosses cultures, peoples and countries? Such
 a contradiction cannot be resolved — the hesitant condemnation by U.S. President Barack Obama, who did
 not boycott the Winter Olympics, and the confused attempts of the International Olympic Committee to
 create some sort of compromise with regard to gay and lesbian athletes, show this.
Such a contradiction cannot be resolved because something as damaging as Russian homophobia empties the
 Games of their significance. The pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who astounded fans when she retired in
perfect style with a gold medal at the World Championships, was asked shortly thereafter about the recently
enacted laws in her country. In broken English and embarrassed body language, she mumbled that in Russia
“we just live boys with women, girls with boys,” and that she supports the laws of her country.
In her response, Insinbayeva exposed the scam: She stands on the podium, tallest of all, closest to heaven
and to God, but she is neither a giant nor an outstanding figure. She is just a young woman who can jump
 higher than other young women.
It was, in fact, the defiant kiss of the Russian team’s relay racers, Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firova,
 who are less well known and whose achievements have not made them “living legends” in athletic terms,
 which will be remembered from the World Championships in Russia as a wonder of humanity, a symbol
of the human spirit that remains undaunted in immoral human surroundings.
Like the historic salute by athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico
 protesting discrimination against blacks in the United States, an act that would later be said to overshadow
 any of their athletic achievements, the Russian women will be remembered for their kiss of protest against
 the homophobic fascism of President Vladimir Putin. No one will remember Insinbayeva’s pole vault.
It was just a jump.
In a place where people are deprived of their natural rights, one cannot pole vault or figure skate and win
some prize. In a place where fascist principles permit, even indirectly, the protection of the law to be
 withdrawn from a group of people only because of who they are — the greatest human achievement is
simply to be a human being. To show solidarity with others, to fight for their natural rights and to oppose
any initiative, governmental or popular, based on mass, blind injustice. That is true for Russia, and it is
 also true for Israel and any place under the sun. If it doesn’t exist, all the rest is meaningless.

Israel and the Constancy of Change

Israel and the Constancy of Change

In our everyday discourse the belief that change is possible, that people's characters and attitudes can fluctuate with time, is an attribute usually associated with naïveté. The wise and seasoned among us know better.

What is astonishing is that the pull of determinism remains strong even when evidence of change is all around us. As parents, our children grow and change before our eyes, and yet at each stage of their development we can find it hard to imagine them transitioning to the next. We are often drawn to seeing our current job, or our family life, or our emotional state, as fixed in stone even if our own very life experience points to the contrary.  

When we look at the Middle East the same dynamic is often at play. In the last years we have watched the region undergo unprecedented change, and yet many find it hard to accept that more is yet to come. With each transition, many quickly persuade themselves that things have settled permanently into place.

Not too long ago Bashar Assad was considered the unquestioned and stable ruler of Syria. Today, the civil war that threatens his rule is seen by many as a tragic and fixed part of the landscape. In Egypt, few predicted the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, fewer still its fall from power in such short order. Hardly anyone anticipated these changes. And yet, amazingly, there are still those who speak with conviction about the nature of the Middle East when the only thing that it seems possible to say with certainty is that we do not know what will come.

Our discourse and understanding of Israeli society can be similarly distorted by our pre-conceptions about the (im)possibility of change. In parts of the Jewish world the sense that Israel's democracy is imperiled is seen as a constant. But despite the insistence that "it was always thus" it is hard to deny the evidence that Israeli society has become more democratic and pluralistic with each passing decade.

We forget too that Israel's search for peace and security has known different phases. There have been times of utter despair, but also moments of justified hope; there have been times of more and of less security. The pollsters tell us that many in Israel have grown deeply skeptical about the prospects of peace, but in years to come this may be described as a period through which we passed, not a permanent state of being. After all, pollsters give us a glimpse of what people think today, but they tell us little about how they may change tomorrow.

This is not to say that everything changes all the time, that change happens quickly or that it necessarily occurs in a positive direction. Some features of our existence are deeply entrenched and exceedingly difficult to uproot. Hostility towards Israel is one of these features. But while the nature of Israel's challenges can be similar over time, the way we adapt and respond to them does not have to be.

Our resistance to embracing the unpredictability and frequency of change may come in part from the fact that there are elements in our environment that can appear immovable. But it also stems from a psychological need to feel in control, from a basic human yearning for stability. Perhaps also by discounting the possibility of change we can avoid responsibility for our role in directing events. Ultimately, though, permanence is an illusion. And we need to be aware of how our attraction to it can warp what we see, what we think, and the decisions we take.

What we must resist is the view that real change is impossible; that somehow Israel's present predicament is also its permanent one. This is a particularly dangerous illusion for it prevents us from asking the right questions. How does change happen? How can we identify the signals that it is coming? How can we shape events in our favor? And how do we influence hearts and minds? If we are trapped in the mindset that there is nothing new under the sun, we forfeit the capacity to be agents of change ourselves, and we hand it to others.

In our Jewish calendar, we have just entered the month of Elul: the period leading up to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur where our focus is on Tshuva - on the opportunity to renew and re-create ourselves. A tradition in which the concept of Tshuva is so central, is a tradition which rejects determinism. It is a tradition which recognizes that being blind to the reality and possibility of change is immeasurably more dangerous and more impoverishing for our individual and collective existence, than is the fear and volatility associated with change itself.

Our Judaism, not just our lived experience, tells us to be conscious of the pitfalls of the chimera of permanence. It tells us to leave a space for the possibility of the presently unimaginable. It tells us that change is coming, the only question is whether we will be a part of it.

Doctor Tal Becker, is a research fellow at the Hartman Institute, Jerusalem and Deputy Legal Adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.