thinking jewish

The Hardest Medicine to Swallow

Seemingly overnight, the warm air of Jerusalem's perpetual summer gave way to the cool wetness of winter in the Judean Mountains. Sweaters were pulled of drawers, hot tea is replacing daily Ice Cafes, and scarfs are all in style in this city in the hills.

There's something very harsh about winter here. The cold chills you down to your bones, and it's nearly impossible to warm up enough until spring. The stones absorb the near-freezing temperatures and radiate the chill back into the limbs of everyone who lives here. There is no cure for the chill. You just shiver your way through March.

There is no medicine to cure this freeze.

Not that there aren't other things that need curing, other ills that afflict this nation that are so in need of the right antidote.

Like this.

I write this as a lover of Israel, whatever that means these days. I am deeply invested in the future of this country, its people, and its politics. I love (almost) every moment I spend here, and, though not a citizen, gain more from this country's being than I could ever fully tally.

I want Israel to thrive. I want the vision to come into being. I want this place to be all that it is supposed to be.

But, as the State Department will now remind us, Israel is an incredibly intolerant country. Or, rather, Israeli society is incredibly intolerant. If you are not an Ashkenazi, Orthodox Jewish man, more or less, you're screwed.

Not to say that it is any more intolerant than most the rest of the world, what with head-scarf bans in France, the illegality of homosexuality in the Arab world, and the mere existence of most of the U.S. South. But this country's existential faux-paxs, combined with its in-your-face, self-rightious attitude, makes being any "other" especially difficult.

Not because the law is necessarily against you, though it often is, but because Israeli culture and social norms demand that everyone tell you clearly just how wrong you are. You're unlikely to face violence for being different here, but you're likely to be told by every passer by just how awful you and what you do are.

Or, when the law is actually against you, you are degraded to a second-class citizen, and all the humiliation that that may entail.

What is so saddening about this fact, is not that there is intolerance in Israel. Rather, the sadness stems from the fact that the image this country presents of itself, an image based on the dreams of what this country was once supposed to become, is that of a vibrant, tolerant democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

This is the place where Jews and Arabs, people of any religious background, are supposed to be entitled to protected rights. This is the place where strangers dance the horah around orange groves, and sing on the streets while eating falafel and drinking coffee.

If only...

The Jewish homeland which is a light unto the nations, an example par excellence for the rest of the world, has a long way to go. That's an understatement.

Which is why such an honest assessment from the likes of the State Department is to be celebrated, not attacked. Anyone who kids themselves into believing that Israel is a mini-America, a land of refugees given inalienable rights, a tolerant pluralistic society in an otherwise hostile land, has their head in the sand. Anyone who declares that Israel's intolerance is a by-product of its sixty-years war and is, therefore, excusable, has some soul searching to do.

But anyone who sees this intolerance and uses it as an excuse, like any other, to throw up their hands and walk away, is being lazy, and taking the easy route out. My obligations to the Jewish people run to deep to not care when the Jewish state is missing its potential. My obligations to God are to important to give up on half of my people.

So I salute this report as a statement of truth shining light on an otherwise oft-ignored reality. Friends need to call each other out once in a while. This is one of those times.

Some may want to cry foul, but that's only because they know the truth, and cannot swallow it.

In Mishna Avot, Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel teaches, “On three things does the world stand: on justice, on truth, and on peace, as it is said, 'Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates (Zech. 8:16),'”.

And didn't rabbi Hillel teach the non-Jew that our tradition could be summed up as "What is hurtful to you, do not do to your neighbor. All the rest is commentary, go and learn it,"?

Rabbi Hillel was right. So too was Simeon ben Gamaliel. These are not blind words. They actually mean something.

Now, as much as ever, it is time to take our tradition seriously.

The Awe With Which to Love This World

I have so much to write. The words fill my head each morning and bounce around until I sleep. I think of ideas and questions and reflections on all that I encounter.

And then night falls, and I've still committed nothing to paper. There is too much Torah to learn, to much out there to experience, so that the casualty by the wayside is my creative exercise.

In the meanwhile, I leave you, this Shabbat, with the glory of a simple mango tree.

One tree, providing mangos to all who come, on the outskirts of a small town in West Africa. This, too, is God's creation.

Shabbat shalom.

On Love

This place is exhausting. Absolutely exhausting.

The political situation is depressing, the government is half-the time out of its mind. And all that doesn't even begin to take into account all the other (perhaps bigger?) problems with this place: the wanton disregard for common decency in interpersonal relations, the degradation of the environment, the secular-religious divide, the utter lack of good drip-coffee.

So often I find myself wondering, "Was it worth it?" "Is this what Herzl wanted?" "So much work, for this?"

Or, worse, "Get me out of here!"

Please, let me leave. Let me have my Starbucks and Target, straight streets with traffic lights. Let me have my lines and rules, order above all.

So often I am depressed by the momentum and direction of this country, so ready to give it all up and stop worrying, to retreat back to my care-free life in Los Angeles, where I am many miles away from the poverty of Compton and the illegal immigrants of the Central Valley, so very far from Sacramento's political battles and the Death Row of San Quentin.

I want to run, to give it all up, but I can't. Something pulls me back. Despite all the pessimism and short-term depression, I cling on.

My exhaustion stems because I place on the Israeli state hopes and expectations that I would never hold for any country other than America. And, because I am so vested in the success of failure of this place, any deviation from perfection is necessarily a personal insult.

We just ended eight years of leadership by one of the more negligent, inflammatory and criminal governments in the world, I remind you. George Bush saddened me deeply. More than that, actually, he scared the hell out of me. But he made me love America - its ideals, its promise, what it is all about - no less. Rather, just the opposite. He made me care more - enough to do all the little I could to elect someone as amazing as our current President and Nobel Prize winner. He reminded me why it is that I believe in America, why I stand firm in support of the dream of one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

That's what love is. And I love America.

I also love Israel.

In reality, I don't actually think that I have the right to act on my exhaustion in any way other than to stay just as engaged as I've always been, if not more. Who am I to stop loving someone because it seems to scary or difficult?

It would be easier. It would certainly be a more relaxing way of being, to just disengage. But doing so would bring into question, I think, whether I actually ever loved Israel in the first place.

Israel is a real place with real people, onto which I graft lofty hopes and expectations. I know that, some day, these can be achieved. But history is messy. And the road to that perfection is long and hard. There will be turns down roads that terrify me, just as there are new avenues of hope opened.

That is reality.

I'd love it to be different. I would love an Israel that lives up to what it is supposed to be, that is not filled with racism or xenophobia, ecological degradation or petty thievery. I would especially love an Israel living in peace, which did everything, all the time, in the interest of peace, even when that interest conflicted with other desires of the State. But that's probably not real life. It's something more akin to Disneyland. (Or, to be more on-key, Mini Israel).

I love Israel because I believe in the Jewish People. I love Israel because it does invigorate American Judaism. I love Israel because my brethren, against all odds, have been able to create a mildly-functioning commonwealth in the land of my forefathers. And I love Israel because of all the people and places here in this country that I have come to personally know and love over the years.

This place drives me crazy. Not a week goes by without me wanting to throw up my hands. Not a day goes by without a moment where I would like nothing more than to cry over a dream unfulfilled.

But potential unmet is no reason to fall out of love. Rather, it is reason to fight even harder for what can and should be.

Love is the rallying cry to lead us through these moments of exhaustion.

So I will keep on loving.

----------------------

These ideas are an amalgamation of thoughts derived from a recent conversation with a friend who, having read this op-ed, was disturbed by its resonance with him. I recommend reading that opinion piece, followed by a direct response by Rabbi Daniel Gordis, here.

Valley of the Ghosts

Atonement Day came and went this year. The Jews pled their case before their Creator, begging for a line in the Book of Life. I am still breathing. I count my blessings, and move on.

Take a second, and zoom in on Yom Kippur afternoon. Walking the streets, one cannot help but notice the glaring absence. It comes in the form of an unsettled feeling in one's stomach.

No, it isn't the fast speaking. It may seem that the lack of food is playing tricks on the mind, but it is not.

In the middle of the day, in the center of the Israeli capital, there is not a moving car in sight. The silence is unsettling. Nothing. Literally, nothing, to be heard.

In place of cars are people, having taken over the roads entirely.

It feels like the end of the world. In the aftermath of some cataclysmic event, the people slowly come outside to see what has become of their planet. It is that odd to the eye. It just does not happen anywhere.

Nowhere but here.

And so, as I stepped down the main street of this German Colony that I call home, reveling in the serenity of peace and quiet, I wanted to grab onto the experience and never let go.

Because it made Emek Refaim feel so normal, so real.

It is anything but.

This street is first mentioned in the Book of Joshua. It is here that the Philistines took position, having been attacked by King David, many centuries later. It is here that, legend holds, a race of giants once dwelled.

Hence it's name, Emek Refaim, "Valley of the Ghosts".

I see these ghosts every morning when I board the bus. The stare at me every afternoon, as I pass shops and cafes on my walk home. They surround me every Friday as I buy groceries for Shabbat.

Look over there! That's where the German Templars first settled this area.

Psst. Just past that cafe, an evil man once murdered innocents, as part of some political game.

Get this: a little beyond that hill, look to the left of that big church. There your ancestors built a home for God.

Every inch of this place is seeped in these stories, history just waiting to be remembered. Like a soaked-through sponge, ready to be wrung out, every step feels full of the past.

The ghosts reach out to grab you; the giants want to catch your attention.

What is the meaning of this place? I ask the same question every day.

I want to pretend it has no meaning.

This is just a place. A place where Jews live. And I am one of them. I have an apartment, I wake up in the morning, and go about my business. I study, I pray, and try to save the world in the process. I watch some television. I go to bed.

But no!

Those Jews, over there, are speaking the language of my ancestors. Were it not for Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the dream would not have come true. That lintel, it has Arabic, because this neighborhood, after the Germans, was settled by Arabs, who fled in '48, the year my people was redeemed, just over there, around that corner.

Every morning, the sun rises over the Jordanian hills to my east. And if I squint just enough, I can make out the profile of Moses, looking here, into the Land of Israel, just before his death.

History comes alive at every moment, the ghosts grab at me continuously.

I tried to use Yom Kippur to shake myself of it all. Let it be. It is what it is. You can't figure it all out in one instant.

Another day passes. Still no answers. Lots more questions.

Not like it's actually a bad thing. We all strive for a life of meaning, infusing each moment with rich ideas and rituals and history. Sometimes, here, it can feel like too much though.

And so I let it be.

In the silent moments, the times no cars are passing, when there is no yelling or shoving or sirens or gunfire, I try to pause. To take in the beauty and love it all. To appreciate it for what it is, all that it has been, and all it strives to be.

Here in the Valley. The Land of the Giants.

High Holiday Appeal

Dear readers of Thinking Jewish,

It has been a pleasure having an audience with whom I can share my thoughts over the years. Some of you have been avid readers since the early days. Others of you have started following my ideas more recently. Some just happen upon this site through various Google searches. One of you is my room mate's father.

This morning, at 9:04 AM, as I was starting my day at the Yeshiva, a large bottle of water spilled onto my laptop. The computer shorted, and died. It was a quick, painless death. Painless for the Macbook, that is. Very painful for me.

Don't let the light go out! Let this tragedy not end our aspirations for the future!

As readers of my work, I now turn to you to help me continue thinking Jewish in the year ahead. I promise that if you help me out, I'll let your synagogue president know he or she should lay back on this year's high holiday appeal. I'll even see what I can do about getting Monday's Yom Kippur fast shortened on your behalf.

To ensure that this holy work continues and that we all can keep on thinking Jewish, click here:

I look forward to new opportunities to share thoughts, explore Judaism, our world, and Jewish thoughts more fully, and promise never to drink anything ever again.

G'mar chatimah tovah and shanah tovah,
David

What This Place is Not

For two weeks now I have woken each morning in the hills of Jerusalem. I breath the mountain air as I step outside on my way to learn for the day. I sit on a bus filled with Jews from every corner of the earth, passing the Old City to my right, and the New City to my left.

I can't help but think often about that line from the liturgy, the oft-referenced source for the religious meaning of the Third Jewish Commonwealth.

May the Merciful One bless the State of Israel, the beginning of the flowering of our redemption.

Amen.

But really? Can this state, this political national interest on a piece of land, truly be the beginning of a new age for the Jewish people? Is this what redemption looks like?

A man gives a d'var Torah while packing a gun in his back pocket. People nearly fall over each other at every speeding turn that the city bus takes. Every business interaction is something close to world war. The coffee shop on my street is filled with bugs swarming around the delicious baked goods. Nothing works. The days are hot, long and filled with ceaseless frustrations.

Sometimes I wonder: We built a state so that we could be in a perpetual state of war? My ancestors died so that I could buy a carton of milk with Hebrew writing instead of English? Is that man over there, buying pornography in shekels, fulfilling the Zionist dream?

The sweat rolls down my back when I try and walk three blocks down the street. Trash is scattered in the streets. Millions of people who want me dead are only miles away, and those are the ones who live in Mea Shearim.

Los Angeles sure feels a lot more redeemed these days.

Waiting in an endless line at the grocery store in the middle of an industrial wasteland, trying to bag my own groceries, while playing bumper cars with my hip and the person behind me's shopping cart as others push their way in front of me, I want to yell out and scream "No!"

This is just a place. A place with lots of Jews. And they smell, and are obnoxious, and rude. It is a country, nothing more, stop imagining differently. It is as flawed as anywhere else.

This is surely no redemption.

And then, as luck would have it, I'm thinking through these very words as I sit in the seat of a taxi cab, winding my way through the streets of Katamon on my way home.

Make a right on Tel Chai, I say, and then a left on David Elro'i. To prove me wrong, the driver makes a right on Bustanai, one street early, and then gets stuck in a traffic jam. This isn't Tel Chai, I remind him.

And then, a few minutes later, when we pull up to my building, my cabbie demands a surcharge for the detour. He blames me for not knowing where I live. You're the driver!, I yell back, pay, and storm off.

I lug my groceries into my apartment, set them on the kitchen counter, and sit down at the table to check my email. I type up some thoughts, and try to put my frustrations behind me.

And then I look up. Up at the large window which is the wall of my apartment. I look out at the view in front of me: the red tile roofs of the German Colony; the neighborhoods of families filled with children, playing in the late-afternoon sun; the Dormittion Abbey atop Mount Zion, itself next to the Old City.

And there, there, far in the distance, I can barely make out the Mount of Olives, filled with its graves and churches and tourist sites. That hill in the distance, the site of the coming of the Messiah, Ben David. There, just over there, is the spot from which redemption will one day come!

I can feel it. The excitement engulfs me.

I take it all in, and sigh a breath of relief, wanting never ever to have to leave this mess.

May 5770 Be the Year We End Hunger

Friends,

As you may know, this summer I had the opportunity to travel to Senegal with twenty three fellow rabbinical students from all walks of Jewish life under the auspices of the American Jewish World Service.

The experience was nothing short of life-altering.

For two weeks, we worked with the villages of Darou Mouride and Keur Songo in the Thies region of Senegal. We spent time learning about the fabulous work of AJWS' grantee, Tostan, in community-led development throughout sub-Saharan Africa. We saw first-hand the devastating effects of extreme poverty in the Developing South.

Most importantly, we spent two weeks getting to know individual people who live in a world so very different and yet so very similar to our own.

I became friends with Tidiane Geye, a ten year old boy who lives in Keur Songo. He is bright, good looking, and always has a smile on his face. He and his family live in a hut made out of straw and mud. They have no access to running water or electricity; they share the sole latrine to which they have access with many other families of their village. He has an open sore on his leg which is infected, and will never receive medical attention. For the three days I was with him, he wore the same, dirty clothes; he has no shoes.

But there is reason to be optimistic about Tidiane Geye and his village. The work of AJWS is having a tangible effect in his life and that of millions of others in situations just like his. As I fumbled over his name (you try speaking Wolof!) he reached down to the sand that is his bedroom floor and wrote out his name in Roman letters - he has been given the blessing of literacy.

Thanks to the work of AJWS, none of Tidiane Geye's sisters will be subjected to female genital cutting. AJWS' grantee, Tostan, has succeeded in organizing more than 3,000 villages like Keur Songo in declaring an end to the devastating practice. Yet there is still so much work to be done to help those like Tidiane Geye living in the Developing World.

My delegation of rabbinical students has committed to raising $15,000 this holiday season to support the work of AJWS in places like Senegal. Every dollar we raise will support AJWS' newest campaign: Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up, working to alleviate the causes of extreme hunger around the world.

As we prepare to celebrate the new year, I ask you to please consider starting 5770 with an added commitment to support poverty alleviation in the Developing World. As an added bonus, an anonymous donor will match each dollar we raise, up to $250,000, doubling the reach of any contribution you are able to make, no matter the size.

So, please, help the American Jewish World Service in its fight against global poverty and hunger. Help send a message that the Judaism you know and love is a Judaism of love for the whole world, a Judaism offering hope to the whole world, a Judaism that demands of us to stand up and fight against the injustices of poverty.

To make a donation,visit my personal AJWS fundraising site here.

Thanks in advance for your support. I look forward to being able to share more stories of my experience in Senegal with you in the months ahead.

I wish you all a sweet new year of health and love, as well as food security, financial security, and peace.

Shanah tovah umetukah,

David