Time to Give Thanks

Before this weekend ends, the Empathic Rationalist would like to join in the Thanksgiving spirit.   No, that doesn’t include eating turkey.   This is strictly a tofurky zone, and the only “Turkey Day” we acknowledge is when some person makes enough of an ass of himself so as to deserve having a day recognized in his honor.   (How’s that for mixing a metaphor, animal lovers?)  Putting aside our dietary differences, I think we can all come together at this time of year to express gratitude.  What follows is my own attempt to take stock in some of our blessings.  To anyone or anything on this list, I offer my deepest thanks.

 1.      God

I wish to thank the Ultimate (God) for life itself.  Any other benefactor pales in comparison.

        2.  The Name of God

I am thankful that our species recognizes the idea of Divinity.  I realize that many have turned the Name into a divisive force – and some even kill over it -- but I remain thankful that we have reached out to the Infinite and developed a concept for the great mystery that engulfs all that exists.  Hopefully, someday, the Name will become as unifying a force as it has been a divisive one. 

3.  Street Protests

Some people in the media appear to look at street protests primarily through a lens of fear.  These journalists seem obsessed with the potential of protests to turn violent and breed lawlessness.  Clearly, they have a point.  But aren't they missing a more profound one?  I look at protests, or at least American protests, as a sign that in an increasingly complacent society, there are some people who still give a damn about fighting for higher causes.  I look at protests as a sign that in a society that in a society that increasingly seems to be controlled by a small, privileged minority, there are some people who still believe that "we the people" have some power.   

  

Do the “people” really have power?  Or have we hopelessly turned into an uncaring plutocracy?   Every time I see a protest, I gain a little more hope.  It really doesn’t matter why people are protesting or whether I agree with their cause, it still gives me hope.  When the protests end, that’s when we’ll know that 1984 is finally upon us.

       4.  Boycotts

Boycotts are similar to street protests in that, at least when they become widespread, they reflect a concerted effort to fight for a cause and against some symbol of the status quo.  In the last several months, the Empathic Rationalist has taken a stand against one type of boycott (those targeting the State of Israel) and in favor of another (those targeting the National Football League), so I clearly have strong feelings both for and against particular protests.  What I’m thankful for is the fact that protests exist as a way for people, peacefully, to express their commitment to a cause.

The folks who run organizations like the National Football League count on the fact that few people in our society believe in boycotts, so they can behave as badly as they want to and it won’t affect their precious revenue stream.  Thankfully, though, boycotts are a time-honored way to tell companies and organizations that “we the people” will only put up with so much B.S. and that we intend to send a message to their wallets.  May that tradition last a lot longer than my NFL boycott, which, after 12 weeks (or ¾ of a season), will partially come to an end after this weekend’s games.   You see, one of the great things about boycotts is individuals get to decide for themselves the scope and the duration of the boycott.

5.  Family

\

I remember studying Marxism when I was young and reading about how the institution of the “nuclear family” is decadent and should be abolished.  Well, I’m here to say that, thank God, we don’t live in a Marxist world.  I have been blessed with a wonderful wife, two beautiful and fascinating daughters, and two parents who have lived to the age of 90 (one of whom is still going strong at 93).  I can’t imagine what kind of dystopia this world would be like without the institution of family.  The phrase “lonely in a crowd” comes immediately to mind. 

     6.    The Evolving Movement Away from Bigotry and Violence

Journalists like to paint a picture of a world constantly at risk.  “Terror sells; reconciliation bores.”  That seems to be the motto of journalism today.

At the risk of boring you, let me request that you consider the results of sociological research.  Despite all the Chicken Littles who preach to us on TV and in the newspapers, the world is getting progressively more democratic, less violent, and less bigoted.  Just look at the facts and figures.   Here’s one of many fact-based articles that paints just the opposite picture from what you’d expect from the news: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent-stats_n_1026723.html

And speaking of articles, last week in Washington, DC, dozens of imams and rabbis got together in an attempt to figure out a way to bring their respective communities together, and we actually got a little publicity.  Here’s one of the articles that emerged from that effort.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/can-jews-and-muslims-get-along-60-imams-and-rabbis-meet-in-washington-to-try/2014/11/24/19fe6350-7420-11e4-95a8-fe0b46e8751a_story.html

I am thankful to have been part of that DC imam-and-rabbi summit and hopeful that similar efforts will spring up in cities around the country and across the world. 

That’s all I have to say this Thanksgiving weekend.  Except for this – I am also thankful for all of you who read the Empathic Rationalist.  Hopefully, this part of cyberspace will continue to pique your interest during the upcoming year.

The Day the Prayers Died

Last night at synagogue, my rabbi made several brief references to a certain incident that occurred on Tuesday morning.  But only once did he mention the city where it happened, Jerusalem.  Hearing that name, I broke down – quietly of course.  I simply put my hands over my face so nobody could see the intense pain that the mere mention of the name had given me.  And there I kept my hands for a couple of minutes, while the rabbi went on to talk or sing about something else.  I had stopped paying attention.  For truly, to be Jewish this week is to think that any topic is difficult to focus on when the alternative is to think about Jerusalem.

Yes, the city had seen violence for weeks prior to Tuesday.  Things haven’t been the same since the lead up to the Gaza War this summer.  But Tuesday was a game changer.  The scene was a synagogue.   Men were at prayer, and not just any men, but teachers, leaders, scholars, rabbis – one in particular was as close to Jewish royalty as anyone in the world.  Then, suddenly, their prayer was interrupted by two cousins who were also fellow cousins of Abraham.  These cousins entered the prayer-room carrying weapons galore.   And in no time at all, the synagogue turned into a scene from a Tarantino movie.  There was so much blood that one person slipped, fell down a flight of stairs, and broke a bone.  He was one of the fortunate survivors.    

In his classic, “American Pie,” Don McLean sang about “The Day the Music Died.”  Tuesday in Israel was “The Day the Prayers Died.”  They were replaced by images of blood, guns, axes, knives, and above all else, human reactions.   Oh, how I am haunted by those reactions.  Hamas, the duly elected government of the Gazan people, officially referred to the event as “an appropriate and functional response to the crimes of the Israeli occupation.”   On the streets of Gaza, passers-by handed out sweets and wielded axes of their own as a tribute to the men who did the deed in Jerusalem.  Street celebrations were also held in the “little town of Bethlehem.”   And on Palestinian radio, the heroes du jour, Rassan and Uday Abu-Jamal, were referred to as “martyrs.”

Another reaction, that of Jordan’s Minister of Parliament Hussein al-Atta, was to read a Qur’anic prayer in the memory of Uday and Rassan.  Al-Atta went on in his facebook page to call the attack “a natural response to the Zionist occupation against our people in Palestine.”  Note the similarity between al Atta’s reaction and that of Hamas: both place the blame for this slaughter on the “Occupation.”  

I’m sorry, folks, but that explanation is not going to cut it.   The men who were killed on Tuesday weren’t “occupiers.”  They weren’t soldiers.   They weren’t politicians.  They were Jews who were worshiping on the western edge of Jerusalem.  Nothing in what they were doing or in what they represented should have been controversial – unless of course you simply think that Jews should die because they are Jews.

Now yes, I understand the way many in the western media would like to depict the victims in this story.  According to the conventional western picture, these victims weren’t simply ordinary non-combatants; they were members of that exotic sub-species of humanoid known as the “Orthodox Jew.”  Some reporters even went as far as to depict them as “Ultra-Orthodox Jews,” as if the word “Orthodox” alone didn’t properly convey how bizarre, anachronistic, and unenlightened these men were.  

But I’m not buying into the relevance of that distinction.   To me, it matters not if these were Orthodox Jews praying in an Orthodox yeshiva or Reform Jews praying in a Reform rabbinical school.  They were Jews at prayer.   And according to what appears to be a significant fraction of the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people, that alone is a capital offense.

Do all Palestinians support the position of Hamas here?  Not even close.  But if you’re a young Palestinian, and if you recognize the legitimacy of both the Jewish and the Palestinian claims to the holy land and you’d like to see a two state solution, what can you do to work for this goal?  How are you going to take on the ruthless lords of Hamas?   Or the Islamic Jihad?  Or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine?  How vocal do you dare get in showing empathy for the plight of the Israeli people?

It’s easy for Jews to sound off against “the Occupation” and announce their sympathy with the Palestinian narrative – for they can do so without fear of physical retribution and find organizations of Jews (like Jewish Voices for Peace) who support their every word.  Life is not the same for Palestinians.  There, you have a choice: violent resistance or non-violent resistance.  But both involve resistance – and not just to the Occupation but to the very existence of a Jewish State.

One of the things that died this week is the myth that “this conflict is not about religion, it’s about politics.”   Those Jews were killed because of their religion.  And the killers, allegedly, were motivated by the threat that the Israeli government was going to jeopardize the Muslim monopoly over what the Muslims call “al-Haram ash-Sharif” and the Jews call the “Temple Mount.”  That piece of real estate is so important to Muslims that Mahmoud Abbas, the so-called “moderate” Palestinian leader of the West Bank, had previously called for a “day of rage” because of perceived Israeli threats to al-Haram ash-Sharif.  

We’ve seen that rage, alright.  We’ve seen it in the work of Rassan and Uday Abu-Jamal.  But again, don’t focus too much on the rage.  Focus on the reaction.  Look at the pictures of the celebrants on the streets of Gaza.  They didn’t seem enraged at all.  They seemed to be calm, joyful, even serene.  For them, it was just a nice day to be alive.   

The banality of evil, indeed.

Time to Twin

We are now smack dab in the middle of November.  And that means we’re at the heart of Twinning season.   The “Twinning” I’m referring to involves interaction among Jewish and Muslim congregations.     Twinning started several years ago as the brainchild of an organization called the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.   FFEU’s website indicates that this phenomenon has now spread to 30 countries and is especially active here in the United States.  

I am proud to say that my hometown of Washington, D.C., is one of the world’s most active “Twinning” cities.  This weekend in D.C., a number of Jewish and Muslim congregations will be getting together.  I plan to attend one of those events in the morning at the Bethesda Jewish Congregation.  In the afternoon, I will be in Boyds, Maryland, where the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington, D.C. (JIDS), will be bringing together teenagers from various Jewish and Muslim congregations around the area.  The teenagers will be removing invasive vines from a public park and will be engaging in a dialogue activity that has been designed and will be facilitated by the teenagers themselves.   Next Sunday, the 23^rd, the pro-Twinning forces are planning a summit meeting of sorts.  That event will be held at the Washington Hebrew Congregation, the city’s largest Jewish congregation, and will bring together Washington area imams and rabbis for the purpose of convincing clergy and congregants to place a higher priority on deepening Muslim-Jewish relations. 

Twinning may sound like it exclusively involves Jews and Muslims, but that is not the case.  JIDS, which I have coordinated since its inception in early 2009, has a number of dedicated members from a number of faiths, including different Christian denominations as well as the Baha’i and Unitarian-Universalist movements.    They come for the same reason that heterosexual people show up at gay rights activities: because they are allies.  In the case of Jewish-Islamic dialogue, these “allies” care about the need for Jews and Muslims to reconcile, work for peace in Israel/Palestine, and help to usher in an era in which religion can be a unifying rather than a divisive force in our world.  

As long as the planners of a Twinning event take care to engage the participants at a high level, the event can be inspiring.  It will remind all who attend that when members of different faiths truly encounter one another, they learn not only that our common ground dwarfs our differences, but more importantly, that once our differences are embraced and accepted, rather than feared, they can be a source of tremendous enlightenment.   I would never have been the Jew that I am today had I not been exposed to faiths like Islam, Christianity and Hinduism.   

No matter where you live, even if it’s a place like New York or D.C. where Twinning is relatively active, your community is surely just scratching the surface when it comes to Jewish-Muslim reconciliation.    The Interfaith movement is essentially a small child that still needs to be nurtured and that easily can be overwhelmed by more powerful forces.   But the good news is that this is a cause in which each of us can make a difference.   All we have to do is walk into a Twinning or other Interfaith meeting, and no matter who we are or what community we represent, we’re likely to be embraced as a member of the Interfaith family.  And if there is no Twinning event or Jewish-Islamic dialogue society in your town, then you can start one.   Just find yourself a “twin” or a triplet.   The need is there.   You can help fill it.   If not now, when?

Life after the Midterms

  

I’ll keep this short and sweet.    Here are ten post-Midterm thoughts.

1.    “We may be feckless and cowardly but at least we’re not crazy” isn’t a winning slogan for a political party.

2. If the U.S. Government is seen as totally dysfunctional, the Democrats will tend to do poorly, since they’re seen as the party that is more supportive of big government.

3. If the GOP stands for bad ideas and the Democrats stand for no ideas, the Democrats will tend to do poorly, because at least their opponents will have passion on their side and Americans don’t vote for political candidates who lack a pulse.    

4.      Mitch McConnell actually does have a pulse.  People shouldn’t mistake his lack of charisma for a lack of political savvy.   However, what the dude has most of all is chutzpah.  How does he get off preaching bi-partisanship after the election?  His tenure as minority leader has been all about making the President and the Dems look bad, Now that he’s succeeded, they’re supposed to compromise with him?   Stay classy, Mitch.
    
5.  Mitch may be old, but his party has a lot of young people near the top of their leaderboard.   Contrast that with the Democrats, who’s idea of an exciting young leader is someone in his/her late 60s.   Where are the young Democratic leaders?  What positions of power do they hold?   It’s time to tell the Pelosis and the Reids to step aside and give some younger blood a chance to get a seat at the big table.
    
 6. In 2008, Obama had America excited about politics again.  Now, six years later, all that excitement is gone.  Most Americans didn’t bother to vote, and I suspect that those who   did show up at the polls were mostly there to vote against someone, not for anyone.   With all that said, democracy is still the best form of government available to our pathetic little species.
   
 7. I’m still in a state of shock that my beloved Maryland, one of the nation’s bluest states, elected a GOP Governor, and that Illinois and Massachusetts followed suit.   I guess you can say that at least with respect to Blue State Democrats, they frequently vote for the “person” not the “party.”  Can the same be said for Red-State Republicans these days?
    
8. I’m all for the end of political polarization, but Obama had better be careful not to compromise too much.  He has to hold the line on anything that is going to make the absurd economic inequalities in this country even worse.   “First, do no harm,” Mr. President.
    
9. I can’t wait for the 2016 Presidential campaign. Just from the standpoint of political theatre, this one could be setting up for a true knock-down-drag-out brawl.   We all know Hillary can bring the brass knuckles, but consider that whoever runs as a Republican will have the whole talk-radio/Fox News attack dog machine behind him.   (Yes, I’m assuming it’s a “him.”)  Something tells me that the bi-partisan talk that’s all the rage at the moment won’t last any longer than a New York minute.  Washington is about to turn into an octagon, and everything – biting, hair-pulling, you name it – will be fair game.  At least that’s my prediction.   I think we as a society are determined to lose any semblance of political civility, and only after hitting rock bottom will we push for an improvement.

 10.  But maybe I’m wrong in that last assessment.  Every now and then, something happens to make me question my cynicism about the American public sphere and to imagine the prospects that we will actually be able to work together.  Yesterday, the White House announced that it will nominate Loretta Lynch to serve as the next Attorney General.   This is a woman who doesn’t come from the world of politics.  She’s not an old-time Obama crony.  She’s just a worker bee – a person who has twice headed up a prominent U.S. Attorney’s Office.  Loretta was in my class and my 1-L section in law school, and while I don’t know her especially well, she always seemed nice and … what is that word again? … oh yeah, classy.  I expect her nomination to sail through, and I expect her to do a good job once she’s confirmed.  If her selection is any indication of the decisions the President makes over the next two years, we may have found our “hope and change” after all.