Indifference

“The opposite of love is not hate, its indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, its indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, its indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, its indifference.”- Elie Wiesel

Be true to yourself and stay humble

I need to get this off my chest; I woke up this morning with feelings of despair. I truly felt this morning like the world was going to hell and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it. I’m sure by now you’ve heard about what happened the other day when Israel committed one of the most egregious, stupid errors I have ever been a witness to. I am angry today, angry at Israel like I have never been before. What occurred on the seas the other day was terrible, it was a terrible thing and today Israel is paying the price for such a stupid and misguided action.

On this blog, on facebook and with my words and actions I have always been a strong supporter of Israel, the place that I love with passion and intensity and pride. But today I feel such shame and grief, shame and grief like I have never felt before towards the leaders of a great nation. Today Israel must do something that it has never before done in international court. It must be humble and admit that this operation was a mistake, a mistake on every level. The plan was stupid, the outcome and consequences were foreseeable, and Israel needs to stand up today before the world and admit that this was a mistake and it shall not be repeated. I love Israel with every fiber of by being, but this was stupid and shortsighted.

In the coming months and years Israel faces a threat like it has never faced before, Hamas in Gaza is armed, Hezbollah in Lebanon is one of the most battle hardened and sophisticated militias in the world and Iran is orchestrating the whole thing, in an attempt to stretch its hegemony in the Middle East from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. It is inconceivable to me, inconceivable that at a time like this Israel would engage in a military action that was so shortsighted, did they achieve their objectives with this operation? Yes, they stopped the ship, but Israel has traded a tactical victory for a strategic nightmare. Was this boat delivering supplies that could have been used to make weapons? I would wager yes, but was stopping this very small delivery worth the cost? I say no, and anyone who says yes is thinking in a very shortsighted manner. They didn’t have to do this, they could have turned the boat around another way, they could have done so many things differently.

Today my heart grieves for the lives lost, for the Israeli soldiers who bravely did their jobs and were put into an impossible situation by their commanders. All across the world today there are protests against this action, all around the world today people are condemning Israel. I just don't get it, I don't get the whole thing, I want to understand it, but I don't and I wish I did. I hope that with more information some sense will be made of this. But the truth is, is that it doesn't matter, the damage has been done.

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

A very insightful article sent to me from a friend, written by Peter Beinart in the New York Review of Books thats worth reading.

A quote:

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

My response to my friend:

I'll try to keep it short but what it comes down to for me and I think a majority of Israelis is a simple fact: we've tried to be reasonable but the time for that is quickly coming to an end, we've read our history we know what awaits us if we let our guard down, if we don't protect ourselves no one else will save us and while we are not perfect the enemy is at our gates and we will not sit quietly and let ourselves be destroyed.

To make a larger point, I'll quote George Orwell "Turn-the-other-cheek pacifism, only flourishes among the more prosperous classes, or among workers who have in some way escaped from their own class. The real working class, are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.”

Do I want peace? Yes absolutely but I sit comfortably in America, a land where (at least for now) as Jew I am safe, meanwhile there are those who choose to live in a far more hostile land, the land of our fathers, father, fathers... we to have a right to that land and that right is not recognized by most the world. We all have to make choices in life about where we stand and while I know Israel isn't perfect I stand with her.

But hell maybe this is just a perfect example of what he's talking about in his article.

love you brother, L'shalom

No Place

“There’s no place for science in this world.”

As quoted in the MA state legislature when discussing an amendment in a bill that would allow locals and not experts to determine if there is sufficient wind to justify building turbines in an area or not… You can’t make this stuff up…

For or against?

Check out this most disturbing moment of clarity. I struggle with my positions on many things, my relationship with g-d, Torah and the state of Israel. I’ve found that often the real struggle is between the liberal and conservative in me, the person who wants to keep an open mind and the person who has looked at the world with an open mind, found what it was looking for and now seeks to defend that from those who would destroy it… maybe I’m being dramatic, but I’m a dramatic guy, this clip is from David Horowitz's talk at the University of California, San Diego. It is disturbing on many levels.

A polite yet hostile student in the audience introduces herself as Jumanah Imad Albahri of the Muslim Students' Association; she refuses to condemn either Hamas or Hezbollah when Horowitz asks her to clarify her position. He asks her a series of questions which she dodges until he asks her this one:

"I am a Jew," he says. "The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For or against it?"

"For it," she says.

It is moments like this one that help me clarify my own stance. I am still a liberal in many ways but it is views like the one of this girl that make me less open to talking about Israel and its place in the world, that make me less open to the idea that there could ever be any kind of lasting peace with Hamas or Hezbollah and it is moment like these that make me say to myself, Israel may be deeply flawed but I am a Jew if I do not support it, if I do not stand against those who hate it, it will perish in a moment. Michael Totten, an excellent writer on Middle Eastern Affray has this the say:

No sooner was the video of this exchange posted when one of the student’s teachers rushed to defend her.

“This girl is actually my student,” A. Casavantes wrote in the comments’ section of Horowitz’s NewsReal blog. “I know her to be an intelligent, moral young woman who believes in peace. I do not support any organization that advocates violence against any specific group, nor do I believe that my student would do so. As a peace loving, Catholic teacher, I’m saddened that this speaker — her elder — manipulated the conversation in this fashion to make her look like someone she isn’t, out of an egotistical desire to prove his own point, rather than engaging in a constructive dialogue.”

It’s a phenomenon as peculiar as it is disturbing, motivated in large part...by fear. “Too many very intelligent people are running away from looking at some very influential and pernicious doctrines of our own time. They don’t want to look. They prefer to shut their eyes and hope for the best.”

There is a difference between being open minded and having a hole in your head

Self criticism

From Shmuley Boteach at the J-Post.

Communities that are not self-critical always risk going off the deep end. They have no internal mechanism to weed out corruption.

State of Emergency

Boston is in a state of emergency.

At 5:00pm on Shabbat a major water vane broke, thirty Massachusetts communities’ water supplies were compromised. I found out about this while walking to the Kollel for mincha. The Boston police drove through my community and announced it. When they did I wondered why they were driving through, it didn’t seem like they would have to. After all, all they had to do to get the word out was put it online, the radio, TV, etc. The only reason I could think of that they had to drive through and make an announcement was because it was Shabbat and we would have had no way of knowing what was going on otherwise.

That is exactly why they did it.

The police drove through all the religious Jewish communities and made announcements specifically for us. That made me think about how beautiful a place America is. Despite its problems it’s an amazing country. The powers that be went out of their way for a small minority group just to be sure we would be safe.

There are times I dream of Israel, it’s an ideal and everyone has one. When I was younger I dreamed of Australia just like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Too often that ideal blinds me from seeing what is right in front of my eyes, what is beautiful. Boston is in a state of emergency, but I have a smile on my face.