#5 Israel: Meditations for a New Year
First off, you cannot win with this topic. As I learned in the past, someone’s gonna hate me.
But I guess that’s the point here. Because on the topic of Israel I’ve staked out what is known in Hebrew as Mitzrayim, the “narrow place,” which is also the name used in the Torah for the land of ancient Egypt.
And this narrow place is getting smaller and smaller, both in terms of its size and the number of people standing there with me.
Imagine a wide expanse of beach with tide pools and intermittent sandy spots. As the tide slowly rolls in, the areas of sand get smaller and smaller and the tide pools grow in size. That’s what it feels like to stand in the narrow place.
See, I’m already going out on a limb with a metaphor about shrinking land. Maybe there are just no good metaphors left.
But I’ll try another. You have a family member — an aunt, let’s say. She’s not someone close to you but you’ve heard stories about her as you’ve grown up. Some of the stories are good ones while others are horrible. At some point in your adulthood you get to meet this aunt and she embraces you, feeds you delicious food, and tries to get you to understand who she is. She takes you to the company where she works. It’s run by an autocratic CEO who treats some employees well and abuses others. At times, your aunt falls in line with this corporate culture and at times she stands with a small minority of workers who are trying desperately to make change. Some employees leave while others insist they have a right to remain and make things better. But new employees are being hired who are favored by the CEO and the minority who care about justice and equality is getting smaller and smaller.
You grow to love your aunt and you want to help her do the right thing and stop all of her vacillating. But you don’t know how.
Israel is my beloved aunt. It is run by people with whom I vehemently disagree. It is a country whose population is growing ever more conservative and xenophobic. But like the visit to my aunt in the metaphor, the trip I took to Israel with my synagogue in 2010 ignited a deep affection.
I try hard to distinguish between the government and the country. I explain to people that although I opposed just about everything that the administration of George W. Bush did, I still didn’t hate my country while he was president. Should Israel be reduced just to Netanyahu and his bellicose West Bank settlers?
There are freedom fighters in Israel, people like the author David Grossman, who for months stood with others holding signs in protest against the destruction of an Israeli Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem. During my trip to Israel, our group took part in one of these weekly demonstrations. These were Jews demonstrating on behalf of their Arab neighbors.
While in Jerusalem I fell in love with the old city with its labyrinth of stone streets and long staircases. I walked through all four quarters: Jewish, Arab, Christian, Armenian. It was a magical place, unlike any I’d ever visited.
This love and awe sit side by side in the narrow place with my anger and frustration. I oppose the occupation but don’t support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. I want justice for the Palestinians but don’t agree with the use of the term “genocide” that was included in the recent platform of the Movement for Black Lives, a movement I wholeheartedly support.
My wife often tells me I am “too concrete.” When she says this she’s trying to help me see that a person can hold two seemingly contradictory points of view on a subject and not be hypocritical or duplicitous.
This is where I am with Israel, living with a long list of contradictions and mixed feelings as the space I stand in grows narrower each day. I want to learn more. I want to help. And most of all, I want to go back.
These meditations are inspired by the Prepent series by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of the Lab Shul which consists of 40 daily letters to himself as a lead up to the Jewish New Year.
Here’s the full list:
Mindfulness & the Year Ahead * Family * Children * Grandchildren * Spouse * Love * Writing * Tikkum Olam * Social Justice * Community * Faith * Judaism * Curating * Ideology * Progress * Friends * Movies * Reading *Division * Politics * Class * Israel * Aging * Body * Food * Money * Charity & Philanthropy * Gender * Shoah * Forgiveness * Worship * Education * Introversion * Sexuality * Accountability * Sin
