Israel -- the Forgotten Hot Spot

This week, my older daughter heads to Israel, where she will be a leader of a Birthright group.   I will be heading to California, where I will be reading a recently-published book that a friend wrote about Israel.   You all remember Israel, right?   It’s in the Middle East.  It’s not controlled by Isis.  Nor is anyone counting on it to wage war against Isis.  That means that it’s off of the American radar screen these days.

In fact, with all the attention that’s given to Islamic extremism these days, Israel is off of a lot of people’s radar screens internationally.  My guess is that the same Europeans who were leading the calls to boycott, divest from, and sanction the Jewish State a year or two ago have turned their attention to other topics.  You might say that when it comes to the outside world, things are “All Quiet on the Israeli Front.”   The violence within its borders continues, but it’s barely getting reported outside of Israel or Palestine.  Somehow, Israel is becoming just another tiny place on the globe. 

This has got to be welcome news on the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv.  Whenever I speak to Israelis, I am moved by the extent to which they’d just like to be left alone to live normal lives.   They don’t seem to be especially hopeful about making peace with the Palestinians.   In fact, they take it as a given that the status quo – mutual alienation with frequent, albeit limited, acts of violence – is as good as Israel’s ever going to get.  Israelis want to be able to go to beaches, nightclubs, or museums without worrying about ethnic tensions.   They choose to get on with their lives with as little fear as possible and, for the most part, with clear consciences.   Their goal isn’t to be freedom fighters or justice seekers.  They just want to be left alone.

I doubt, however, that the same perspective is shared in Hebron or Ramallah.   From the Palestinian perspective, the “Occupation” (as the Israeli status quo is known) is a monstrosity that has to stop, and their job is actively to resist it.   My Palestinian friends seem to take it on faith that they will win their struggle, for the international community will not tolerate Israeli injustices much longer.  Palestinians can agree to disagree about whether the result will be two states, one state, or some creative binational arrangement – or whether acts of violence against Israelis are acceptable means of furthering a just outcome.  But to a person, they refuse to believe that the Occupation will continue and refuse to allow the Israelis to live their hoped-for “normal” lives until justice is served.   In short, they contend that the world must treat Israel as a pariah state, and Israelis must be scared or shamed into doing the right thing. 

So there you have it -- two peoples with altogether different aspirations and perspectives living on the same tiny piece of land.  Internationally, we used to call it the Holy Land.  Then it became known as a war zone.  And now it’s just a place that most people would just as soon not think about – it’s neither threatening nor depressing enough to compel our interest.  

In 2015, everyone in my nuclear family will have travelled in Israel – some for extended periods of time.  I can’t tell you how proud I am that one of my daughters is leading a group of American Jews on their first trip ever to their ancestral homeland.  Is Israel a perfect place?  Do its leaders treat their Palestinian population with respect and dignity they deserve?  Or pursue all appropriate paths to reconciliation?   Sadly, I am forced to answer “no” to each of those questions. 

But damned if I am going to stop supporting the Jewish State.   And damned if I am going to hold the Israelis to higher moral standards than other peoples are expected to attain.  If the Palestinians want peace, they too must do their part.  They’re going to have to treat Israeli aspirations with respect.   They’re going to have to recognize that the Israelis have their own historical claim to “the Land,” and that this claim didn’t start in the 1940s … or for that matter, the 1890s.  Finally, they’re going to have to live with the fact that as long as Palestinians support only a strategy of “resistance” rather than compromise and reconciliation, the Israelis will just go about their lives paying the bare minimum of attention to the prospects for peace. 

The Israelis have the power, so they’re the ones with the clearest opportunity to make peace.  But it’s precisely because they have the power that they can’t be expected to seize that opportunity unless and until the Palestinians make it worth their while.  So far, because neither side wants to go out of its way to reconcile with the other, we have a seemingly intractable status quo marked by a self-delusion on both sides.  The Palestinians narcotize themselves with their senses of victimization and hope in a “just” future, and the Israelis pretend that everything is peaceful and secure (meaning that the only alternatives they can imagine are even less so). 

As for the American Jews, we can continue to visit the State of Israel, all the while basking in her historical landmarks, her natural beauty, and her incredible economic and military accomplishments.   But as a pilgrimage, it’s not quite what it used to be when I first traveled to Israel in 1981.  That was just a few years after the Camp David Accords were signed.  There was reason for optimism.  If Israel could make peace with Egypt, why not the Palestinians?

I still can’t answer that question.  Maybe my friend’s book will explain to me that peace with the Palestinians is not possible (that perspective is all the rage these days), but I’m hoping he’s going to take a different approach.   I’m going to continue to pray for peace, whether it’s possible or not.  In other words, I’m going to continue to pray for reconciliation and compromise.  You see, I don’t see Israel as “just another country” where people fearlessly swim in the sea and hike in the hills.   I see Israel – and Palestine -- as the home of several of the world’s great religions.  It’s not enough to aspire for such a place to be “normal.”  We must aspire for it to be a land of righteousness.   And that begins with at least some measure of justice for all its inhabitants.  Then, and only then, can we live secure lives at peace with ourselves and our neighbors.

(Note -- due to my trip to California, I expect to return to blogging on the weekend of January 9th/10th.   In the meantime, have a Happy Holiday Season!)

Separated at Birth

On Thursday, December 3rd, page D5 of the Washington Post dealt exclusively with two men, neither of whom is from the DC area. They happen to be two of the greatest sports icons of their generation, and two of the greatest competitors in the history of sport. Neither one has retired, but both have long since passed their primes. And now, finally, they are publicly coming to grips with that fact.

Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant turned professional in the same year, 1996. They became champions of their sport, over and over again, spanning a lengthy period, and continued to amass accolades through 2013, when Woods was named for the 11th time as the PGA Player of the Year and Bryant was named for the 11th time as a member of the First Team All-NBA team. On the playing field, both set lofty goals that they came close to reaching, but never will. In Woods’ case, it was to defeat Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 Major Championships (Woods won 14, the second most in history), and in Bryant’s case it was to equal or exceed Michael Jordan’s collection of six NBA Titles (Bryant will be forced to stop at five).

For Woods and Bryant, their celebrity extends way beyond their accomplishments as athletes. To begin, they are known for their similar personalities: driven beyond compare, ferociously intense, reserved with fellow competitors and the media, impatient with anyone who doesn’t live up to their standards. Sadly, they are also known for their sexual infidelities. Bryant was once charged by the authorities with sexual assault stemming from an incident that allegedly occurred when his wife was pregnant. In connection with the same matter, Bryant resolved a civil suit with a written admission that “I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.” As for Woods, he became a punch line after the extent of his extramarital sex life was publicly revealed over a period of weeks at the end of 2009. Reportedly, he paid $100 million to divorce his wife, later took up with another celebrity (skier Lindsey Vonn), but watched that relationship end as well due to his own further infidelities.

Until recently, Bryant and Woods were additionally linked by their willingness to deny the inevitability of their declines as athletes. While their bodies clearly gave out a couple of years ago, they spoke publicly as if a return to greatness is just around the corner. Bryant is healthier now than he’s been in the last couple of years, and indeed he has been hoisting up an incredible number of shots as if he still thinks he plays on a Hall of Fame level. In reality, though, his shots rarely go in the basket. Woods has spent the last couple of years enduring the same pathetic cycle: having surgery, rehabbing his body, insisting that he is getting his game back to form, performing poorly when he finally gets the chance to play tournaments, and then getting reinjured. In Woods’ case, the only victim of his spectacle has been his own personal reputation as a player. In Bryant’s case, his decision to monopolize the ball long after his skills have left him has caused his team to become one of the league’s worst; the once-proud Lakers now have a record of 3-16, and have the dubious distinction of being the one team that has lost to the 1-19 Philadelphia 76ers.

When I chronicle all these facts, I shouldn’t be surprised that Bryant and Woods have so many detractors, even haters. Woods, in particular, has been the subject of scorn, perhaps because his sport is associated with gentility, and Tiger has never been Mr. Congeniality, even when he was in his prime. Considering the general level of schadenfreude in our society, I suspect that Tiger’s recent comebacks have given rise to no shortage of glee, as he stumbled his way to one missed cut after another despite having proclaimed during pre-tournament interviews that his golf game was on the right track. Given all the Laker haters in this country, it would be reasonable to assume that that Kobe’s nightly egg-laying tour has similarly given rise to laughter in arenas all around the country. People enjoy it when arrogant superstars ultimately get their comeuppance.

Supposedly, it’s all about karma. And indeed, as long as Kobe and Tiger were in denial, you got the impression that their careers would continue to go deeper and deeper into the tank. But just in the past week, the script changed. Kobe announced his retirement, effective at the end of this season, and he did so with style. In a poem that was submitted to a public website, Kobe provided an ode to his fans: “You gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream. And I’ll always love you for it. But I can’t love you obsessively for much longer. This season is all I have left to give. My heart can take the pounding. My mind can handle the grind. But my body knows it’s time to say goodbye.” Tiger, for his part, was more prosaic, but the point was the same. On Tuesday, he spoke to the media about how his body has reached the point where all he can do is walk, and he has no timetable for a return to competitive golf. “There’s really nothing I can look forward to, nothing I can build towards,” he admitted, after undergoing three procedures on the same part of his back in the past 18 months. But then he added, that with 79 PGA Tour victories and 14 Major Championships, “if that’s all it entails, then I’ve had a pretty good run.”

A pretty good run indeed. During the 12 years that elapsed between his first Major victory and the time that his marital infidelities were revealed to the world, Tiger played golf at a higher level than it’s ever been played. He made Jack Nicklaus look like a plodder by comparison, and that’s no small task. Tiger was a gladiator – a guy who would will himself to a dramatic victory when he wasn’t playing particularly well, and lap the field when he was. He was must see TV, and may I add – his was a refreshing face in a sport that was as white as a hotel sheet. Personally, I view myself as a golf fan today who enjoys watching minor tournaments when I have a few spare minutes and greatly enjoy the Majors. But I owe my fandom to one man and one man only, and his name is Tiger Woods.

His Doppelganger, Mr. Bryant, has never been quite as successful. Nobody has ever claimed, for example, that Kobe is the best of all time. Top five? That’s a stretch. Top ten? Probably. Top twelve? Definitely. But he was not in Tiger’s league as a winner. And yet that’s no indictment, for if you are a basketball player and your name isn’t Bill Russell or Michael Jordan, you can’t be in that league – but you can still be viewed as an all-time great who in the words of Charles Barkley has been a “privilege and an honor” to watch.

This past Wednesday in my home town, Kobe showed up with a resignation that the sun was setting on his career. Most likely, he expected to play the clown once again in what would be surely be another Laker defeat. But strangely enough, he walked into a lovefest, and he was the beloved. I could tell something was up as I passed by the arena on the way to the subway during my evening commute. I saw so many jerseys bearing the name “Bryant” that it felt like I was living in LA. When I turned on the game after coming home, the DC sports fans were loudly and repeatedly chanting “Kobe, Kobe, Kobe.” As if each fan was personally responsible for lifting up his aging legs, Bryant responded with 31 points, while leading his team to a four point victory over a squad that had beaten LeBron James in its previous game. Asked later if he was surprised about the crowd’s reception, Bryant responded “Yes, I thought everybody hated me. It’s really cool, man.”

Say what you want about the problems with our nation’s capital, but this past Wednesday night, there was no better place to be than inside DC’s Verizon Center. Whether you are a fan of the Lakers or the Wizards, or just a basketball aficionado, if you showed up at that arena, the odds are that you were expressing love for Kobe Bryant. You were practicing what is the essence of religion: thanking your benefactor. For surely, all true basketball fans would have to recognize that a competitor like Kobe Bryant is truly one of our benefactors.

I’ll sign off now and let everyone get back to the obsession with violence that seems to be engulfing our society. But I wanted to take some time this morning to recognize that there is more to life than fighting wars – be they against infidels, guns, terror, or whatever. There is also time for play – and for playing games with the eye of the Tiger and the joy of a warrior. Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods came into our lives at around the same time and will likely leave the public stage at the same time as well. But during the interim, they demonstrated what it means to “leave it all” on the playing field. Let the haters laugh at the demise of their careers and mock them for their personal shortcomings. I, for one, intend to think positive thoughts about them – not as role models, but as gladiators. They have made me a bigger fan of their sports and of sport generally. And I encourage each of you, if you get the chance, to watch them play live, and applaud them for their efforts. While there may be karma for athletes with fidelity problems, there is surely also karma for fans who know how and when to express gratitude.

A Thanksgiving Weekend Plea

“All happiness or unhappiness depends solely on the quality of the object to which we are bound by love.”

Spinoza wrote those words in one of his earliest works, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.  But this morning, I’d like to tweak them a bit.   Here’s my version:  “So much happiness or unhappiness depends solely on the quality of the object to which we are bound by hatred.”

You have to pardon me, but I spent part of the last couple of days putting the finishing touches on my newest essay, entitled “Spinoza on Love and Hate.”  In my research, it became clear that of these two emotions, love took the lead role for Spinoza.  But it was also clear that Spinoza believed that hatred is both more ubiquitous and more important than most of us would like to believe.  I didn’t have to be convinced.  I’ve always thought that people are in denial when it comes to the prevalence and profundity of hatred.  

Here are some snippets from the sage of Amsterdam:  “It is rarely the case that men live by the guidance of reason; their condition is such that they are generally disposed to envy and mutual dislike.” “Men are prone to hatred and envy, and this is accentuated by their upbringing.  For parents are wont to incite their children to excellence solely by the spur of honor and envy.” “Men are far more inclined to revenge than to repay a benefit.” “Men are by nature enemies, and even when they are joined and bound together by laws they still retain their nature.” 

All of those words were written more than 300 years ago.  Do they remain true?  Or has the arc of the moral universe bent so far toward justice in the past few centuries that these statements seem antiquated?  Personally, I take some of those quotations to be a tad exaggerated, but only a tad.  It is certainly the case that envy, revenge, mistrust, bigotry, and violence are alive and well.  It is also the case that when Spinoza painted a portrait of the human condition characterized primarily by insecurity and competitiveness, he demonstrated how slowly indeed the arc of the moral universe bends.   Just turn on the television – news, drama, whatever you prefer:  are you likely to see a profile in love or in hatred?  Security or fear?   Anger or compassion?

Even the voices of “progressivism” right now are obsessed with their enemies.  For a while, it was the NRA.  Then, it was Netanyahu.  Now, it’s the xenophobes and the other bigots.  So there you have it – it is not enough for the progressives to be engulfed by hatred.  Now, they have to be hatefully obsessed with hatred itself.

While I have no idea exactly what the progressive’s obsession du jour will be tomorrow, I think it is safe to say that it will not be an object to which they will be bound by love, but rather an object to which they will be bound by hatred.  And needless to say, the same can be said about their political opponents, who may claim to be followers of Ronald Reagan, but don’t come close to having the Gipper’s positive vision of progress.  He traded on hope, whereas his contemporary “disciples” trade on fear.  And anger.  Such is life in 2015.

It is difficult to write the above words this weekend, which should be a time of gratitude.  We all have so much to be thankful for, and it is precisely those things – the objects that bind us by love, not hatred – that we need to take stock in more often.  As Spinoza argued, hatred is impossible to avoid altogether, for any time we feel pain, we are prone to feeling hatred.  But at least we can avoid the more grandiose manifestations of hatred, such as envy and anger, and we certainly should be able to avoid feeling the kind of inner-rage that seems to be on the ascendancy today, and not just in the Middle East. 

How do we defeat hatred?  Only by love.   That was Spinoza’s teaching back in the 17^th century, and it remains true today.

This Thanksgiving weekend, please remind yourselves of the people you love the most, the institutions you love the most, the artists and writers you love the most, the qualities in yourself you love the most, the aspects of your planet that you love the most, and the vision of the future that you love the most.  Just for this one weekend, let yourself be defined by what you cherish, not by who you fight.   

And when you’re making your list, allow me to remind you not to forget about God.  Spinoza, for all his heresies, would require me to make that point.  After all, it was Spinoza – who many take to be an atheist – who wrote that the love toward God “cannot be stained by the emotion of envy, nor again by the emotion of jealousy,” and “there is no emotion directly contrary to this love by which this love can be destroyed.”  Accordingly, Spinoza added, our love toward God “is the most constant of all emotions … and cannot be destroyed except together with the body.”  

I would never say that the belief in God is for everyone, but I am heartened to say that for those who do believe, the Holy Name provides an incredibly powerful object of affection.  These days, I feel like we’re fortunate whenever such an object presents itself.  I’ve had enough with all the hatred.  

Turning Washington, D.C. into a Hotbed of Reconciliation

Tomorrow, in a suburb of Washington, D.C., several dozen Muslim and Jewish religious leaders from the Greater Washington Area will assemble for the purpose of engaging in two activities.  First, we will see if we can identify a social action cause that both communities can embrace and tackle together.  Second, we will try to match up individual congregations of Jews and Muslims to form “twinning” relationships that can hopefully continue for months, or even years.

I have spent a lot of time during the past several weeks coordinating this event and am incredibly excited about the prospects.  I can see the event being a great boon to Muslim-Jewish reconciliation in this area, and yet I can also see the possibility that it will accomplish little, due to a lack of follow-up.   Ultimately, the responsibility for the event’s success lays with its participants – the rabbis, imams and lay leaders who will assemble.   It is clear to me that they all care about Muslim-Jewish reconciliation and engagement, but they are also beset with a myriad of other demands on their time.  It is not like the organizers are poised to lock them into a room for months until they’ve somehow bonded into lean, mean, interfaith machines.   We organizers are going to lead these horses to water, but we can’t make them drink.  In other words, we can’t force them to prioritize Muslim-Jewish activities above all their other duties.  Believe me, though, we’re going to try to inspire them.  And as far as I’m concerned, the world needs us to succeed.

I would love to go on and discuss the event in more detail, but because of my role and the fact that we’re only a day away, I don’t have the time to extensively blog this morning.  What I can say, however, is that I’ll accept your prayers.   Please pray that the stars align.  Pray that the speakers find their voices.  Pray that the social action cause that the group votes on is an inspired choice.  And above all else, pray that those rabbis and imams who exchange names and phone numbers tomorrow afternoon actually follow-up and pursue these relationships going forward.

Jews and Muslims are the closest of cousins.   It is time for us to recognize all that we have in common rather than to obsess exclusively about our differences.   May tomorrow afternoon provide a significant step in that direction.

Coping with Madness in the 21st Century

What a crazy morning this has been.  One minute, I’m looking at last night’s photographs from the streets of Paris – the filled body bags, the wounded survivors, the ubiquitous policemen.  The next minute, I’m looking at the photographs that have just now been released from my daughter’s wedding – the beaming bride and groom, the adoring friends, and yes, even the proud, balding father-of-the-bride.  

There is so much in life to be thankful for, and nothing quite like wedding pictures to bring that point home.  But today, it is difficult to devote ourselves to thanksgiving.  It is a day that should be devoted to contemplation – and sorrow.

I call this blog the Empathic Rationalist, based on the philosophy espoused in my first novel, The Creed Room. The centerpiece of that philosophy was a simple rallying cry: Let passion be your sail, reason your keel, and empathy your rudder.   You will note that in the name of that philosophy, the “reason” element is the noun and the “empathy” element only the adjective, but when it came time to formulate a credo, it was empathy that was featured the most.  We are advised to steer our way through life primarily using our empathy.   After all, passion can be violent, and reason can be cold.  But empathy?  It is almost always a thing of beauty.

This morning, however, I find that my empathy is being challenged.  To be sure, it’s easy enough to empathize with the victims of the Paris attacks and their families.  But for every moment I spend feeling compassion for them, I spend another moment feeling hatred for the terrorists who turned Paris into a bloodbath.  (It is OK to use the term “terrorist” for those creatures, is it not?   When civilians are killed in Israel, I note that in many circles, the terrorists/murderers are often thought of compassionately, more as soldiers than as terrorists.  But hopefully, I can use the T word for the perpetrators of last night’s massacre and not worry that there is a soul reading this blog who would use a more gentle word on their behalf.)

I keep thinking to myself, how can so many members of our species support the killing of innocent people?  Do I have to think of these killers as human, rather than simply as evil creatures?  Have they not given up their right to claim personhood status?  Or is it appropriate for us to show them at least some measure of compassion, if not because of who they are today, then at least because of who they have the potential to become in the future, if only they can somehow wake up to basic human values?

Maybe my feelings are too raw for me to answer these questions today.   Maybe I’m still too much in shock to reason intelligently about this topic.   So let’s try this.  Let me remind you of what I said in the Creed Room when I addressed this topic under more sober conditions:

“Even the greatest empaths can’t encounter everything, or every one, empathetically.   In fact, no matter how empathic the soul, at times he will encounter a person whom he finds distasteful.  We’re talking eating-a-bad-tomato distasteful.  Perhaps the person is a malicious gossip or a pathological liar.  Perhaps he’s just plain violent.

“To be empathic in these situations doesn’t require turning the other cheek.  Sometimes people have to be confronted and stopped in their tracks.  Yet, even in the darkest of encounters, an empath must act respectfully toward the ‘other.’   He must recognize that this distasteful or violent person is a human being cut from the same basic cloth as the empath himself.  

“When encountering a walking, talking bad tomato, the situation is no different from when the empath recognizes something about himself he doesn’t like.  He doesn’t wallow in self-loathing.  Where’s the respect in that?  For the same reason, he shouldn’t wallow in hatred for others.

“That said, if it turns out that an empath finds himself in the same situation that a certain writer did in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and is forced to witness the ‘other’ raping his wife before his very eyes, we suppose a heaping handful of hatred is in order.  But even then, the pilot light must at least be flickering.”

Those were my words from a decade back, as I contemplated distasteful and even violent individuals.  But what happened last night in Paris wasn’t merely a showcase of one or two distasteful or violent individuals.  The perpetrators of last night’s mayhem didn’t behave like human beings, even sick human beings – they behaved like the Borg from Star Trek.  Wikipedia defines the Borg as “a collection of species that have turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones in a hive mind called the Collective, or the hive.”  In the case of ISIS, we are dealing with creatures that are weaponizing themselves into instruments of terror and homicide, fueled by a belief-system based on sheer contempt for contemporary human beings.  How am I supposed to think of them as people?   Insofar as I think of them at all, how am I supposed to keep that pilot light (of love) flickering?

Nights like last night are indeed eye openers. Perhaps, for the first time, some of my fellow gun control advocates are appreciating the arguments for allowing law abiding citizens to bear arms.  And perhaps President Obama may appreciate the value of confronting extremist Islam as such – rather than using euphemisms to characterize this deadly movement that we are now facing.  I have spoken a fair bit in this post about my first book, The Creed Room. But above all else, when I’m not feeling sorrow for last night’s victims, I’m thinking about one of the themes of my second book, Moses the Heretic.  That’s the one where I spoke about the dangers of rapid and constant advancements in weapons technology.  Last night in Paris, fancy guns killed well over 100 people.  But what will happen in 50 years, when the successors of ISIS gather the most up-to-date biological or chemical weapons available and try to kill 100,000 people?  Do we really believe that can’t happen?  And if it did, are we really expected to empathize with the killers?

So there you have it -- something to think about on a grim Saturday morning.  A little oy to go with your joy.  Shabbat Shalom.