Today is the first day of the month of Elul. This summer has
been too much and it is “too soon” to be able to write a paragraph which begins
with the words “This summer has been…”. As another cease-fire is declared in
and around Gaza (odds are this one will stick, both sides too bent out of shape
to break it), Ferguson returns to an unhealthy simmer, and the other atrocities
lose their media sex appeal, perhaps we can begin to take stock. After two
months in which it’s been hard to string a comprehensible sentence together,
all I can manage so far are snippets of realizations, paragraphs threads
without clear conclusions. Yet I need the darkness of Av to make way for the early
dawns of Elul.
**
In general, very little thinking should take place during
August. It is too hot to think. Europeans have it right when they simply shut
down the nation and drift off for their “vakanzie”. Things will make more sense
in September.
The Jewish calendar agrees. The month of Av peaks as it
enters the depth of destruction and mourning on the infamous Tisha b’Av (Ninth day
of Av), coasting in the sweltering heat until a new moon appears. The new month
of Elul will bring with it a touch of autumn, that first breeze which reminds
us that the humidity is not here to stay, that existence can become merciful
again. The pious among us awaken early to “seek out our ways, investigating and
seeking a path back”. Preparations for a new year begin, a cleansing process:
may a year and its curses end, may a year and its blessings begin.
Yet this year, after a harrowing two months, 50 days of war,
how can we enter Elul if the grip of Av well not let up? How can I enter the internal
work of change when war is all around? How do we turn Av into Elul?
***
In 2006 the second Lebanon war mostly passed me by. My
friends donned uniforms and disappeared into Southern Lebanon. My wife – six
months pregnant – was called for reserve duty at her Intelligence base (dealing
another blow to my Israeli masculinity). I hunkered down in Jerusalem’s National
Library, reducing the war to a “media issue”, not anything too real. Like a
teenager with an eating disorder, I’d stuff my face with news, updates and
op-eds at weird hours of the night, and then call for a “media fast”, declaring
that “it’s all too disgusting to engage with”.
This summer I did not have that privilege. Perhaps it was
the fact that I was responsible for the safety and well-being of 26 teenagers,
perhaps it was my own 7 and 5 year old, aware and questioning about sirens and
terrorists and soldiers and war. My first war as a parent. Perhaps it was my
sister in Beer Sheva, sending whatsapp updates from their bomb shelter, or the
fact that now it was not just friends serving on the front, but students. Perhaps
it was the fact that the Gaza strip was my home for 18 months in the 90’s (a
small military outpost alongside the Rafah crossing) or the fact that this is
the first conflagration of the conflict since moving back to Jerusalem. And
maybe, as so many Israelis said early on, it simply feels different this time.
It’s real. The sirens are not “there”. They are here. And the despair of the
people and misguidedness of our leaders feels so thick you can almost touch it.
***
A word of Torah for a
bloody month of Av. Why do we suffer? Jewish tradition offers us two
narratives, each powerful and pervasive. But – as Rabbi Larry Edwards pointed
out to us this simmer – they are stuck in parallel, always in proximity but
never overlapping. “מפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו” vs. “בכל דור ודור עומדים עלינו לכלותינו”. “Because of our sins we were exiled from
our land” and “In every generation they stand up to destroy us”.
What caused the Second
Temple to be destroyed? The Roman Empire, or our baseless hatred? A disinvited
party guest with a funny name – Kamtza – or the inevitable might and corruption
of Emperor Vespasian and his sons?
You can divide today’s political
analysts (and ones relatives) into these two parties, and never the twain shall
meet. “It’s because of our sins!” says the brow-beating-self-hating-Liberal. “No
matter what we do, they will always hate us,” retorts the xenophobic-self-righteous-Conservative.
Haaretz vs. the Jerusalem Post, Fox vs. NYTimes and the Forward, Maimonides vs.
Yehuda haLevi. Rabbi Ishmael vs. Shimon Bar Yohai. One calls for an internal
corrective, the other sees introspection as misguided self-hate. One sees a
world out to get us, the other sees us as our own worst enemy. It feels nearly
impossible to hold onto both of them at the same time. And it seems to be just
as much about one’s own personality as about whether what’s trending on your smartphone
is stories about ISIS or Yisrael Beiteinu. Which one is more optimistic? That
depends on what kind of person you are.
Both worldviews in their
extreme are unhinged. Two roller-coaster rides running side by side with
similar experiences and yet inverted conclusions. One is a narrative of total
disempowerment – we will always have enemies and that cannot be changed, all we
can do hide from history/await divine salvation/mow the lawn. The second narrative
believes in our total agency, as if everything that happens in Jewish (or
Israeli) history is solely in our own hands. They are both wrong. And they have
both never been more accurate.
**
I am a total “our own
sins have brought us here” kind of guy. I believe it is the way our Prophets
have taught us to look at the world – Amos, Isaiah, Meir
Ariel. And even if it’s not the only explanation for the reality we’re
facing, it is the one I can do something about. I prefer self-flagellation to victimization.
For what is the meaning of the Jewish people – to fight anti-Semitism or to
model an ideal society? Maimonides seems
to agree: the only meaning that can be derived from suffering is
self-improvement.
There are days when the entire Jewish
people fast because of the calamities that occurred to them then, to arouse
[their] hearts and initiate [them in] the paths of repentance. This will serve
as a reminder of our wicked conduct and that of our ancestors, which resembles
our present conduct and therefore brought these calamities upon them and upon
us. By reminding ourselves of these matters, we will repent and do better in
the future. (Mishne
Torah, Laws of Fasts 5:1)
I used to think we don’t
need the Ninth of Av now that we’ve rebuilt a Jewish state. Why mourn
destruction now that we are rebuilding. I know today that there is no more
important holiday today, in this era of our Third Sovereignty. The month of Av reminds
us that we can have it all – and then lose it. And that it is our own mistakes
that will make us lose it. If we don’t shape up it will happen again.
Thus the nights of Av
make way for the dawns of Elul.
**
But then I raise my gaze
from the comforts of Jewish guilt and look the enemy in the eye – and the
hatred is real, and eerily repetitive. How can I indulge in introspection when
I am under attack? Yes, I am flawed, but the attack is real. Like Job’s friends,
those on the sidelines – rooting for me, yes – come and tell me that I am the
source of the problem. I welcome such criticism, but right now it is doubly
hard to hear. I want to believe my enemies (external and internal) are
rational, enlightened, reasonable; and that “if only I would…” then surely “they
would…”. But the medieval violence of this summer makes me question those assumptions.
And so I can sit out Elul in my self-righteous bunker and claim it is everyone
else’s fault but my own.
**
Betrayed by our leaders.
Trapped under their rule. This is not a description of Gaza, it is a
description of Israel. “If only someone else was the leader now and not that
shmuck” “If only democratic elections meant that my ideology always wins”. It
seems that the Israeli narrative of the first month of conflict was a renewed Israeli
solidarity, a careful leadership and a homefront that discovered it had a spine.
The narrative of the second month has been the waffling of the leadership and
the abandonment of those towns and kibbutzim closest to the front. Either way,
the people are something to be proud of, the leadership is not. And yet – as always
– the people will pay the price while the politicans keep eachother propped up.
I can only imagine what the internal narrative on the other side is.
Then why do I still
expect “leaders” to solve this crisis – Israeli, Palestinian, American? There
is no ilitary solution, but it seems there is no political solution either – at
least not one to be generated by so-called “heads of state”. But what is the
alternative, and am I really ready to embrace what such an alternative might means
for my life? The conclusion seems to be that it is not enough to simply vote in
the elections and post things to Facebook to make a difference. So now what?
Unable to change my leadership,
and unwilling to take the mantle of political action myself, I can at least
turn the reality of Av into a metaphor for Elul. Like the failed leadership of
our states, my own life has been led by weak, indecisive leadership. Like them,
I have opted to keep the status quo at all costs, preferring short term comfort
over long term health. Like them I have gullibly believed in the power of a
third-party to knock sense into me (John Kerry, personal trainer), or that an
appeal to rationality will bring an “end of the conflict”. I mean, we all know
when the right answer is in the end, why can’t we just get there now? In my own
life, it is not so simple. Why doesn’t he just shake off the bad internal leadership
and become the change he wants to see in the world? I don’t know, maybe because
it’s easier to blame outside enemies (especially when they are real, like your
kids taking up all your extra time).
**
Half a thought. Anyone
who left this summer with the same opinions as they had entering it, is wrong.
As the events unfolded in the Middle East this summer, on the streets of Gaza,
the siren towers of Tel Aviv, the hills of Northern Iraq, the conference rooms
of Washington and Cairo, did nothing make you change your mind? Did you not learn
anything new that reshapes your understanding of the situation? In all those
news items and op-eds and you tube videos, not to mention first-person
experiences, was there nothing consciousness-altering? If you are holding fast
to the same diagnoses and data that you had before all this happened, if you haven’t
revisited your tightly held axioms, truly engaged a perspective 180 degrees
different from your own, didn’t listen to voices that undermine what you
believe to be true… well, then you’re probably like all the rest of us. But
maybe we can use these next 30 days, outside the barrage of rockets and news flashes,
to reach some fresh conclusions.
Agnon in his compendium “Days of Awe” describes the upcoming 40 days
between now and Yom Kippur as “Days that don’t return, hours that will not
reoccur”. Elul is all about opportunity. Will we take it? Will I?
**
Resh Lakish
said: What is the meaning of the verse (Proverbs 3:34):
“As for the scoffers, He scoffs at them / But to the humble He grants favor”?
A person who
comes to defile - the doors are opened to him;
But one who
comes to purify - is helped.
In the school
of Rabbi Ishmael it was taught:
It can be
likened to a shopkeeper selling [foul smelling] Kerosene Oil and [wonderfully fragrant]
Persimmon Oil.
If a purchaser
comes to measure Kerosene, the shopkeeper says to him: Measure it out for yourself;
But to one who came
to measure out Persimmon Oil he says: Hang on, wait, until I can measure
together with you, so that both you and I may become perfumed.
(Talmud Bavli
Yoma 39a)
God, claims Rabbi Ishmael, likes to smoke it up with his customers. Those
who purchase the good stuff, that is. He also keeps foul smelling, toxic and
dangerous substances, and unfortunately allows for their purchase as well. A
true believer in the free market, our Creator. She enables those who come to
defile (and they are proud to say that they bought their wares in Her shop).
But it is those who seek to purify that She invites into a relationship.
After a summer in which kerosene was spilled on our homes, our children,
our futures, and left to burn – let’s hope the sales of Persimmon oil go
through the roof. And as we come to purify – ourselves, our communities, our
collective futures – let’s wait awhile, pause, perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to
experience the storekeeper joining us in the pleasure of the moment.
May it be a good month,
Mishael
