Tomorrow is Yom Sayerot, the gatekeeper to all the gibushim [field tests] for the most elite units (Matkal, Shaldag, Shayetet, Unit 669, etc) in the IDF. The last week, with the flurry of holidays, fast days and late night slichot prayers, may not have been the most ideal way to prepare for the six hours of physical tests--think sprints and sandbag runs--that await me tomorrow evening. Or perhaps the week of spiritual overdosing, with the grand finale of Yom Kippur, is exactly what I will need come tomorrow.
Either way, Yom HaDin II awaits in less than twenty-four hours.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
K'ish Echad, B'lev Echad: Yom Kippur on Kibbutz
How was Yom Kippur by Kibbutz Tirat Zvi?
Spirited and soulful. And yet also down to earth. To wit, the schedule allotted five minutes for the community rabbi to speak to the congregation before the concluding prayer of Ne'ilah. When the previous mincha prayer ran a few minutes late, the rabbi knew his marching orders and kept his remarks to a sparse two minutes!
The highlight of the day came at the end, moments before the final shofar blast. After standing by my lonesome since seven am, I was suddenly surrounded by a horde of squawking, smiling children. The kids were all over the bimah, excited to be in synagogue after spending most of the day away from their parents. As the chazzan led us in a rhythmic cry of 'ה' הוא אלו-ים' my eyes traveled around the crowded hall, taking in the laundry-ladies, lifeguard, date farmers, meat plant staff...in short, the entire population of the kibbutz. And for the first time in my life, I truly appreciated the words from the U'netaneh Tokef prayer "And all mankind will pass before You like members of the flock."
Spirited and soulful. And yet also down to earth. To wit, the schedule allotted five minutes for the community rabbi to speak to the congregation before the concluding prayer of Ne'ilah. When the previous mincha prayer ran a few minutes late, the rabbi knew his marching orders and kept his remarks to a sparse two minutes!
The highlight of the day came at the end, moments before the final shofar blast. After standing by my lonesome since seven am, I was suddenly surrounded by a horde of squawking, smiling children. The kids were all over the bimah, excited to be in synagogue after spending most of the day away from their parents. As the chazzan led us in a rhythmic cry of 'ה' הוא אלו-ים' my eyes traveled around the crowded hall, taking in the laundry-ladies, lifeguard, date farmers, meat plant staff...in short, the entire population of the kibbutz. And for the first time in my life, I truly appreciated the words from the U'netaneh Tokef prayer "And all mankind will pass before You like members of the flock."
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Day Cometh
Some folks love Thanksgiving. Many Jewish friends of mine swear by Pesach. My favorite holiday?
Yom Kippur.
I was not always a Yom Kippur Jew. It took the awesome surroundings of Yeshivat Har Etzion, praying alongside hundreds of my peers, teachers and roshei yeshiva, to open my eyes to the beauty of Judaism's most sacred day. One of my key concerns when I left Israel for university in Baltimore was whether I would find a community, a prayer service, where I could sustain my connection with Yom Kippur.
Yeshivat Ner Yisroel my first year was good but not quite me. Luckily the next year I found my Yom Kippur home. For the last three years I have prayed with the NYU Student Minyan, relying on the mesmerizing service led by Rabbis Sarna and Korn to provide me with the once a year experience I could not do without.
Now I am back in Israel for the first time since I fell in love with what it means to devote an entire day to stepping outside and within, twenty-four hours given over to contemplating past, present and future, an entire day to embrace Judaism's core value of teshuva.
A lot has changed in my life since I wrote to many of you in September 2008. After a year in Washington, I have taken dual citizenship and returned to Israel. My current home is a modest kibbutz along the Jordanian border, full of date trees, a meat-packing plant and a roving band of peacocks. Two weeks ago I was drafted into the Israel Defense Force. In two short months, I will don a green uniform and report for basic training. The times, as a fellow Minnesotan once sang, are a changin'
After November it will become increasingly more difficult to keep in touch. Please help me out and write as you can. I will do my best to quickly respond, via this blog and of course through personal correspondence.
Postscript
On my ride into kibbutz this morning, a beautiful rendition of Untaneh Tokef, the one prayer of the High Holidays that no listener ever forgets, was playing on the radio. The strange bit was that the station had no religious affiliation. Later my kibbutz mother explained that the tune playing on the radio was composed on a nearby kibbutz after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when dozens of young men fell in the terrible fighting. The tune has became part of Israeli culture, and so every year, as Israelis prepare for Yom Kippur and recall the harrowing days of October 1973.
Finally, to those who missed Leonard Cohen's final public performance, in front of 50,000 admiring fans in Tel Aviv, David Horovitz's article in the Jerusalem Post does as much as anything to capture the poignancy of the performance. Read here.
Yom Kippur.
I was not always a Yom Kippur Jew. It took the awesome surroundings of Yeshivat Har Etzion, praying alongside hundreds of my peers, teachers and roshei yeshiva, to open my eyes to the beauty of Judaism's most sacred day. One of my key concerns when I left Israel for university in Baltimore was whether I would find a community, a prayer service, where I could sustain my connection with Yom Kippur.
Yeshivat Ner Yisroel my first year was good but not quite me. Luckily the next year I found my Yom Kippur home. For the last three years I have prayed with the NYU Student Minyan, relying on the mesmerizing service led by Rabbis Sarna and Korn to provide me with the once a year experience I could not do without.
Now I am back in Israel for the first time since I fell in love with what it means to devote an entire day to stepping outside and within, twenty-four hours given over to contemplating past, present and future, an entire day to embrace Judaism's core value of teshuva.
A lot has changed in my life since I wrote to many of you in September 2008. After a year in Washington, I have taken dual citizenship and returned to Israel. My current home is a modest kibbutz along the Jordanian border, full of date trees, a meat-packing plant and a roving band of peacocks. Two weeks ago I was drafted into the Israel Defense Force. In two short months, I will don a green uniform and report for basic training. The times, as a fellow Minnesotan once sang, are a changin'
After November it will become increasingly more difficult to keep in touch. Please help me out and write as you can. I will do my best to quickly respond, via this blog and of course through personal correspondence.
Postscript
On my ride into kibbutz this morning, a beautiful rendition of Untaneh Tokef, the one prayer of the High Holidays that no listener ever forgets, was playing on the radio. The strange bit was that the station had no religious affiliation. Later my kibbutz mother explained that the tune playing on the radio was composed on a nearby kibbutz after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when dozens of young men fell in the terrible fighting. The tune has became part of Israeli culture, and so every year, as Israelis prepare for Yom Kippur and recall the harrowing days of October 1973.
Finally, to those who missed Leonard Cohen's final public performance, in front of 50,000 admiring fans in Tel Aviv, David Horovitz's article in the Jerusalem Post does as much as anything to capture the poignancy of the performance. Read here.
Where are All the Girls at?
Why have you not dated, Sammy? I'm sure [there have been some girls] who were charmed by you. Was there just no one good enough?
I like to think I can provide friends with answers to anything they ask of me, especially when the request is of a personal nature. This question, received from a dear friend shortly before Yom Kippur, had me stumped. And it was of little consolation that I have asked myself the same question on Yom Kippur for the last several years.
Some emendations are in order. I have dated, if only once (a three week romance by telephone, for all its magic, does not count). And I have wanted to date a half-dozen other times. So I am fairly well versed in learning to live with rejection.
But the question is what it is. And despite the best of intentions, here I am: On the brink of Yom Kippur, with the past year good for little more than memories, and not only will I again be asking myself this question, now even my friends are expecting a response!
Postscript
This note is not dedicated to my parents. Nevertheless they surely are awaiting an answer with far more anticipation than anyone else. So when it comes, I will make sure to dedicate that note to them!
I like to think I can provide friends with answers to anything they ask of me, especially when the request is of a personal nature. This question, received from a dear friend shortly before Yom Kippur, had me stumped. And it was of little consolation that I have asked myself the same question on Yom Kippur for the last several years.
Some emendations are in order. I have dated, if only once (a three week romance by telephone, for all its magic, does not count). And I have wanted to date a half-dozen other times. So I am fairly well versed in learning to live with rejection.
But the question is what it is. And despite the best of intentions, here I am: On the brink of Yom Kippur, with the past year good for little more than memories, and not only will I again be asking myself this question, now even my friends are expecting a response!
Postscript
This note is not dedicated to my parents. Nevertheless they surely are awaiting an answer with far more anticipation than anyone else. So when it comes, I will make sure to dedicate that note to them!
Shabbat in Safed
Obama sucks, the Druze will stab you in the back and though army service is for sinners, it is a crying shame the IDF does not get rid of all the Arabs. So I was told by the Jewish family who shared their shabbat lunch with me this past weekend in Zfat. Putting up with their racist harangue was not easy, especially as it tarnished what otherwise was a commendable display of shabbat hospitality. I did my best to keep silent out of respect for that very hospitality, reminding myself that I have held my tongue in the face of more abusive diatribes in Egypt and Syria. At least this time around, my hosts’ political extremism brought home a lesson I hope to never transgress: no politics at the Shabbat table!
The conversation over lunch in Zfat was pretty rotten. But there were many wonderful, even marvelous, take-aways from my weekend sojourn in the azure alleyways of Zfat.
Shortly before sundown on Friday eve I dipped in the mikva of the Ari, the natural spring and ritual bath named after the great mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria. Friday night prayers took place in a small yeshiva overlooking Mount Meron, the view that gives Zfat its name and identity (the village of Meron is the burial place of Simon Bar Yochai, the second century legendary author of the key mystical work, the Zohar; Zfat literally means ‘view’). The prayers were filled with song and soul, never more so than at the end when a visiting group of secular air-force soldiers slipped in to join the largely breslov/carlebach crowd of worshipers.
For dinner I joined a family who have fashioned a home from the stone remnant of the town’s mountaintop crusader ruins. We ate by candlelight, drinking home-made wine and exchanging Torah as I marveled at the host’s reflexive tendency to whisper "l'kavod shabbos" (in honor of the shabbat) before consuming every bite of food. After dinner my host took me to the home of a visiting Hasidic rebbe. The old man’s hands melted in my own when he took my hand. But his blessing for my welfare and safety in the year ahead was firm and clear.
My visit to Zfat left me with its own blessing, a timely reminder of the spiritual axis that is critical to my Judaism and that I cannot afford to relinquish in the army. Serving in the army will no doubt strengthen my commitment to my people. And returning to kibbutz on weekends will provides me with accessible meals, laundry and friends. But neither the army nor kibbutz is likely to provide what I found in Zfat, that corner of my spiritual faith that not only teaches me how to improve the world but also leaves me with a clearer understanding of myself and my surroundings.
The conversation over lunch in Zfat was pretty rotten. But there were many wonderful, even marvelous, take-aways from my weekend sojourn in the azure alleyways of Zfat.
Shortly before sundown on Friday eve I dipped in the mikva of the Ari, the natural spring and ritual bath named after the great mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria. Friday night prayers took place in a small yeshiva overlooking Mount Meron, the view that gives Zfat its name and identity (the village of Meron is the burial place of Simon Bar Yochai, the second century legendary author of the key mystical work, the Zohar; Zfat literally means ‘view’). The prayers were filled with song and soul, never more so than at the end when a visiting group of secular air-force soldiers slipped in to join the largely breslov/carlebach crowd of worshipers.
For dinner I joined a family who have fashioned a home from the stone remnant of the town’s mountaintop crusader ruins. We ate by candlelight, drinking home-made wine and exchanging Torah as I marveled at the host’s reflexive tendency to whisper "l'kavod shabbos" (in honor of the shabbat) before consuming every bite of food. After dinner my host took me to the home of a visiting Hasidic rebbe. The old man’s hands melted in my own when he took my hand. But his blessing for my welfare and safety in the year ahead was firm and clear.
My visit to Zfat left me with its own blessing, a timely reminder of the spiritual axis that is critical to my Judaism and that I cannot afford to relinquish in the army. Serving in the army will no doubt strengthen my commitment to my people. And returning to kibbutz on weekends will provides me with accessible meals, laundry and friends. But neither the army nor kibbutz is likely to provide what I found in Zfat, that corner of my spiritual faith that not only teaches me how to improve the world but also leaves me with a clearer understanding of myself and my surroundings.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Benefit of a Small Audience
My mother is worried. If her concern was due only to my impending army service, there is little I could do besides offer reassurance and leave it at that. Such is the unenviable fate for the families of Israel! Fortunately my mother's worry has proximate cause, one that can be readily resolved with a little assistance from readers of this blog.
First, some back story:
Over the long afternoons of Rosh Hashanah, I reread the letters of Yoni Netanyahu and Alex Singer, two of the all too many soldiers that have fallen in defense of Israel. Yoni is a national hero, known to one generation as the courageous commander of the daring hostage-rescue mission in 1976 in Entebbe, and to the contemporary era as the older brother and role-model of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Alex is not quite as famous, though to overseas volunteers like myself his story has a special poignancy since Alex was also an American born volunteer in the IDF (Yoni actually was also a chayal boded [a foreign volunteer in the IDF whose family is overseas], as his family moved to the USA in his first year of high school).
Both families responded to the death of their son and brother by publishing the letters he composed while preparing and then serving as a soldier in the IDF. And so today readers can open the pages of The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (later published under the name Self Portrait of a Hero) and Alex: Building a Life and explore the heart and soul of two remarkable individuals who gave their lives for a people and a cause they sincerely believed in.
I have read both books dozens of times. Since discovering Yoni's Letters at age ten, I have returned to the book repeatedly, each time discovering new insight from a young man who lived a life of startling integrity. Two years ago, in my third year of university, I chanced upon the story of Alex. The words and sketches that fill his letters are the modest twin to the more celebrated written legacy of Yoni. Alex did not command Sayeret Matkal nor was he a recipient of one of Israel's highest military honors. Yet his insights and tribulations as a soldier and officer in the paratroops speak volumes about his courage and humanity.
One can learn a lot from either young man. The lesson my mother took from observing my reading the memoirs of two of Israel's fallen soldiers was worry. And so when she called me a few days after Rosh Hashanah, my mother urged me to look for a publisher of this blog. Now. Today. That is, before anything untoward possibly happens in the future.
The problem, of course, is that with rare exceptions (and I have read the English language exceptions, like Lonely Soldier, Brotherhood of Warriors and Company C!), few folks are excited to read about anybody until something dramatic, usually tragic, occurs. Shock and awe win readers, even if they do not always win wars.
And so, I explained to me mum, the fact that so few people read my blog (and hence make the idea of publishing a book fairly silly) is just as well. I have zero interest in suffering harm to increase readership. If fewer readers means I am safe and sound, then so be it!
Hence, a new policy: If you refrain from becoming a regular reader, I will not be in the least disappointed. Instead I will understand that you are acting out of a sincere desire to keep readership low and hence assure my loved ones that all is well with yours truly!
First, some back story:
Over the long afternoons of Rosh Hashanah, I reread the letters of Yoni Netanyahu and Alex Singer, two of the all too many soldiers that have fallen in defense of Israel. Yoni is a national hero, known to one generation as the courageous commander of the daring hostage-rescue mission in 1976 in Entebbe, and to the contemporary era as the older brother and role-model of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Alex is not quite as famous, though to overseas volunteers like myself his story has a special poignancy since Alex was also an American born volunteer in the IDF (Yoni actually was also a chayal boded [a foreign volunteer in the IDF whose family is overseas], as his family moved to the USA in his first year of high school).
Both families responded to the death of their son and brother by publishing the letters he composed while preparing and then serving as a soldier in the IDF. And so today readers can open the pages of The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (later published under the name Self Portrait of a Hero) and Alex: Building a Life and explore the heart and soul of two remarkable individuals who gave their lives for a people and a cause they sincerely believed in.
I have read both books dozens of times. Since discovering Yoni's Letters at age ten, I have returned to the book repeatedly, each time discovering new insight from a young man who lived a life of startling integrity. Two years ago, in my third year of university, I chanced upon the story of Alex. The words and sketches that fill his letters are the modest twin to the more celebrated written legacy of Yoni. Alex did not command Sayeret Matkal nor was he a recipient of one of Israel's highest military honors. Yet his insights and tribulations as a soldier and officer in the paratroops speak volumes about his courage and humanity.
One can learn a lot from either young man. The lesson my mother took from observing my reading the memoirs of two of Israel's fallen soldiers was worry. And so when she called me a few days after Rosh Hashanah, my mother urged me to look for a publisher of this blog. Now. Today. That is, before anything untoward possibly happens in the future.
The problem, of course, is that with rare exceptions (and I have read the English language exceptions, like Lonely Soldier, Brotherhood of Warriors and Company C!), few folks are excited to read about anybody until something dramatic, usually tragic, occurs. Shock and awe win readers, even if they do not always win wars.
And so, I explained to me mum, the fact that so few people read my blog (and hence make the idea of publishing a book fairly silly) is just as well. I have zero interest in suffering harm to increase readership. If fewer readers means I am safe and sound, then so be it!
Hence, a new policy: If you refrain from becoming a regular reader, I will not be in the least disappointed. Instead I will understand that you are acting out of a sincere desire to keep readership low and hence assure my loved ones that all is well with yours truly!
Friday, September 18, 2009
My Lost Spark: Self-Sacrific Lost and Desired
There are two kinds of people in life, especially in the army: those who look out for their own needs and then consider their work done and those who look to assist the community after their personal needs are satisfied. You have to know, to decide, which kind of person you will be.
Failure taught me these words. I had disappointed Dalia, the volunteer coordinator of my garin, brushing off her unspoken request to sweep the common room after I finished cleaning my own space. She saw me a few minutes later and the look in her eyes conveyed whatever disappointment was absent from her verbal reprimand.
Perhaps the disappointment I saw was merely a reflection of my own inner turmoil. After all, the eyes are the windows to the soul. A few days earlier, on Rosh Hashana afternoon, I had reread the Letters of Yoni Netanyahu. Yoni's final letter, addressed to his girlfriend shortly before his death in the daring hostage rescue operation in Entebbe, describes an inner crisis that I have grappled with for the last few years. On June 29 1976 Yoni writes,
I find myself at a critical stage in my life, facing a profound inner crisis that has been disturbing my whole frame of reference for a long time…I am tired most of the time, but that’s only part of the problem—I have lost the spark that is so vital for any achievement, the spark of creative joy, of self-renewal, of reawakening.
My own spark slipped from my grasp in my second year in university, after a series of experiences cracked the drive and vigor that had become second nature in high school and yeshiva in Israel. The Sammy that started university in 2005 would never have failed to look out for communal needs. Years of exposure and hands-on leadership experience at summer camps, Jewish high school and yeshiva in Israel had provided me with the background, confidence and sense of responsibility to better my Jewish community at university. I was a whirlwind of sensitivity and drive during my first two years in college, organizing, promoting, problem-solving...there was no end. Most nights I turned-in after two AM, having only put aside community tasks at ten o'clock for several hours of arduous Chinese and other homework assignments.
I never cracked. There was no magical morning, no moment when I walked into the Hillel building and announced I was done putting others ahead of myself. I lost my spark from a convergence of events, some so beautiful that I still feel a tug at my throat when the memories come to mind. Most of these events, of course, were far from pretty, and the tar they left on my activist soul has been difficult to remove till today.
When I stepped away from a leadership position in the Jewish community in my final year of university, my friends and family figured stress, frustration and alienation had pushed me over the edge. They were not too far off the mark. The longer and the more I gave to the community, the less I felt that my work was either appreciated or, more critically, inspiring my peers to elevate our community. What I did feel was growing alienation, a reality captured by a fellow student who described my role in the Jewish community as a jukebox, the robotic programmer who ensured there was always music but never joined the gang dancing to the tunes. Leadership can be a very lonely place, especially when the sense of responsibility one feels so deeply is shared by few of your peers. The responsibility I felt and my activities in response led me to form very few human relationships during my first two years in university. Few friends and disappointment with my work make for a potent brew, particularly in the stressful academic environment that is Johns Hopkins. And so the charge that I retreated from the Jewish community due to frustration is fair. Up to a point.
My disenchantment culminated at the end of my sophomore year when I organized an exhibit in memory of a friend who was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War. Thanks to the selfless contributions of friends and volunteers, the exhibit was displayed to great effect at some two dozen campuses and community centers around the world. I hoped that my fellow student leaders at Hopkins would assist me in hosting the exhibit on campus. At the very least I looked forward to my own student community displaying a similar level of interest to the impressive response audiences around the world had showed in the exhibit. In the end neither my hopes nor expectations were fulfilled. With a few laudable exceptions, no one in the community made the slightest effort to assist or even view the exhibit. Instead the message was sent, all the louder by the communal absence, that no one cared.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised. That same spring term also saw me grappling with the teachings of two scholars, two giants of twentieth century Judaism, Rabbis Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Soloveitchik's philosophical writings are consumed by the existential loneliness that religious man confronts in modern society. Loneliness is also a motif in Heschel's discussion of the prophetic individual, although the key characteristic of Heschel's ideal figure is an overwhelming concern with God's concern for mankind. "The world," Heschel writes, "is at ease and asleep [and only] the prophet feels the blast from heaven… [his] word is a scream in the night."
The ideal figures described so beautifully by Soloveitchik and Heschel left me inspired. But I was also shaken, stunned by how closely their words captured my travails on behalf of my student community. However flattering it may have been to find my predicament akin to the challenges faced by Soloveitchik's man of faith and Heschel's prophet, the respite both figures find in either companionship or divine faith was beyond my ken.
When the spring semester ended I returned home to put my interpretation of Soloveitchik and Heschel to paper. In July a close friend was to marry and I wished to include an essay on the two scholars in the journal of Jewish thought his friends were creating (surprise!) for his wedding. For five nights I was a ghost in my home, spending the nights wrestling with the words of Soloveitchik and Heschel as my reflection gazed back at me from the luminous computer screen. I thought. I stared. And when my paper, "In Search of Man: The Ideal Jew of Rabbis A.J. Heschel and J.B. Soloveitchik," was finished I departed for China, flying to the other side of the world for the very first time with a score of questions still ringing in my head.
My summer in China provided few answers. But it did leave me with a different attitude, no longer driven to marshal the same level of enthusiasm and creativity for communal work. Ironically the impetuous for my new attitude came through the close friendship I developed with An Kaxin, another student on my summer language program. My relationship with An Kaxin upset my previous prioritizing of communal needs ahead of personal desires.
An Kaxin's influence was also central in my growing sympathy for the Chinese school of thought that suggests man must subsume his self within nature, accepting and embracing the flow of life. This philosophy was one among many that I had studied over the past spring term in a course on ancient Chinese thought. Initially Confucianism, with its hallowed injunctions on the merits of responsibility and self-sacrifice, appealed to me more than the selfish themes I found in Daoism. I grew more attuned to Daoist themes, however, over the summer in China. The following story, one of my favorite stories from the Daoist sage Zhuangzi, richly captures the challenge Daoist themes pose to my prior attachment to tenets of self-sacrifice and communal responsibility.
Zhuangzi was angling by the River Pu when two officials from the Kingdom of Chu approached. "Our Lord invites you to become his high official and run the kingdom," the men told Zhuangzi. Without looking up from his pole, Zhuangzi remarked, "I have heard that in the Kingdom of Chu there is a sacred turtle. It has been dead three thousand years and the king of Chu keeps it in a silken box, stored in the ancestral hall. Now would that turtle rather have its bones treasured in death or be alive and dragging its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive and drag its tail in the mud," replied the officials. "Go then," intoned Zhuangzi, "And leave me to drag my tail in the mud as well."
When Dalia looked me in the eye and asked what kind of person I am, self-centered or self-sacrificing, I blinked and thought of the last few years and the lessons from Johns Hopkins, Soloveitchik, Heschel, An Kaxin, Zhuangzi and Yoni Netanyahu. And then I opened my eyes and told her the truth: I want to rekindle the drive and sensitivity from my past. I need to believe that I can balance that energy with the sobering lessons I learned in university. I want and I need. But who am I today? Perhaps that is another question I expect my army service to help resolve.
Failure taught me these words. I had disappointed Dalia, the volunteer coordinator of my garin, brushing off her unspoken request to sweep the common room after I finished cleaning my own space. She saw me a few minutes later and the look in her eyes conveyed whatever disappointment was absent from her verbal reprimand.
Perhaps the disappointment I saw was merely a reflection of my own inner turmoil. After all, the eyes are the windows to the soul. A few days earlier, on Rosh Hashana afternoon, I had reread the Letters of Yoni Netanyahu. Yoni's final letter, addressed to his girlfriend shortly before his death in the daring hostage rescue operation in Entebbe, describes an inner crisis that I have grappled with for the last few years. On June 29 1976 Yoni writes,
I find myself at a critical stage in my life, facing a profound inner crisis that has been disturbing my whole frame of reference for a long time…I am tired most of the time, but that’s only part of the problem—I have lost the spark that is so vital for any achievement, the spark of creative joy, of self-renewal, of reawakening.
My own spark slipped from my grasp in my second year in university, after a series of experiences cracked the drive and vigor that had become second nature in high school and yeshiva in Israel. The Sammy that started university in 2005 would never have failed to look out for communal needs. Years of exposure and hands-on leadership experience at summer camps, Jewish high school and yeshiva in Israel had provided me with the background, confidence and sense of responsibility to better my Jewish community at university. I was a whirlwind of sensitivity and drive during my first two years in college, organizing, promoting, problem-solving...there was no end. Most nights I turned-in after two AM, having only put aside community tasks at ten o'clock for several hours of arduous Chinese and other homework assignments.
I never cracked. There was no magical morning, no moment when I walked into the Hillel building and announced I was done putting others ahead of myself. I lost my spark from a convergence of events, some so beautiful that I still feel a tug at my throat when the memories come to mind. Most of these events, of course, were far from pretty, and the tar they left on my activist soul has been difficult to remove till today.
When I stepped away from a leadership position in the Jewish community in my final year of university, my friends and family figured stress, frustration and alienation had pushed me over the edge. They were not too far off the mark. The longer and the more I gave to the community, the less I felt that my work was either appreciated or, more critically, inspiring my peers to elevate our community. What I did feel was growing alienation, a reality captured by a fellow student who described my role in the Jewish community as a jukebox, the robotic programmer who ensured there was always music but never joined the gang dancing to the tunes. Leadership can be a very lonely place, especially when the sense of responsibility one feels so deeply is shared by few of your peers. The responsibility I felt and my activities in response led me to form very few human relationships during my first two years in university. Few friends and disappointment with my work make for a potent brew, particularly in the stressful academic environment that is Johns Hopkins. And so the charge that I retreated from the Jewish community due to frustration is fair. Up to a point.
My disenchantment culminated at the end of my sophomore year when I organized an exhibit in memory of a friend who was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War. Thanks to the selfless contributions of friends and volunteers, the exhibit was displayed to great effect at some two dozen campuses and community centers around the world. I hoped that my fellow student leaders at Hopkins would assist me in hosting the exhibit on campus. At the very least I looked forward to my own student community displaying a similar level of interest to the impressive response audiences around the world had showed in the exhibit. In the end neither my hopes nor expectations were fulfilled. With a few laudable exceptions, no one in the community made the slightest effort to assist or even view the exhibit. Instead the message was sent, all the louder by the communal absence, that no one cared.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised. That same spring term also saw me grappling with the teachings of two scholars, two giants of twentieth century Judaism, Rabbis Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Soloveitchik's philosophical writings are consumed by the existential loneliness that religious man confronts in modern society. Loneliness is also a motif in Heschel's discussion of the prophetic individual, although the key characteristic of Heschel's ideal figure is an overwhelming concern with God's concern for mankind. "The world," Heschel writes, "is at ease and asleep [and only] the prophet feels the blast from heaven… [his] word is a scream in the night."
The ideal figures described so beautifully by Soloveitchik and Heschel left me inspired. But I was also shaken, stunned by how closely their words captured my travails on behalf of my student community. However flattering it may have been to find my predicament akin to the challenges faced by Soloveitchik's man of faith and Heschel's prophet, the respite both figures find in either companionship or divine faith was beyond my ken.
When the spring semester ended I returned home to put my interpretation of Soloveitchik and Heschel to paper. In July a close friend was to marry and I wished to include an essay on the two scholars in the journal of Jewish thought his friends were creating (surprise!) for his wedding. For five nights I was a ghost in my home, spending the nights wrestling with the words of Soloveitchik and Heschel as my reflection gazed back at me from the luminous computer screen. I thought. I stared. And when my paper, "In Search of Man: The Ideal Jew of Rabbis A.J. Heschel and J.B. Soloveitchik," was finished I departed for China, flying to the other side of the world for the very first time with a score of questions still ringing in my head.
My summer in China provided few answers. But it did leave me with a different attitude, no longer driven to marshal the same level of enthusiasm and creativity for communal work. Ironically the impetuous for my new attitude came through the close friendship I developed with An Kaxin, another student on my summer language program. My relationship with An Kaxin upset my previous prioritizing of communal needs ahead of personal desires.
An Kaxin's influence was also central in my growing sympathy for the Chinese school of thought that suggests man must subsume his self within nature, accepting and embracing the flow of life. This philosophy was one among many that I had studied over the past spring term in a course on ancient Chinese thought. Initially Confucianism, with its hallowed injunctions on the merits of responsibility and self-sacrifice, appealed to me more than the selfish themes I found in Daoism. I grew more attuned to Daoist themes, however, over the summer in China. The following story, one of my favorite stories from the Daoist sage Zhuangzi, richly captures the challenge Daoist themes pose to my prior attachment to tenets of self-sacrifice and communal responsibility.
Zhuangzi was angling by the River Pu when two officials from the Kingdom of Chu approached. "Our Lord invites you to become his high official and run the kingdom," the men told Zhuangzi. Without looking up from his pole, Zhuangzi remarked, "I have heard that in the Kingdom of Chu there is a sacred turtle. It has been dead three thousand years and the king of Chu keeps it in a silken box, stored in the ancestral hall. Now would that turtle rather have its bones treasured in death or be alive and dragging its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive and drag its tail in the mud," replied the officials. "Go then," intoned Zhuangzi, "And leave me to drag my tail in the mud as well."
When Dalia looked me in the eye and asked what kind of person I am, self-centered or self-sacrificing, I blinked and thought of the last few years and the lessons from Johns Hopkins, Soloveitchik, Heschel, An Kaxin, Zhuangzi and Yoni Netanyahu. And then I opened my eyes and told her the truth: I want to rekindle the drive and sensitivity from my past. I need to believe that I can balance that energy with the sobering lessons I learned in university. I want and I need. But who am I today? Perhaps that is another question I expect my army service to help resolve.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Destiny in a Date Box: Sweetest Start to the New Year!
"We have to go outside now," Leah Gilboa told me when I stopped by her house on Thursday September 17, shortly before I headed down to Jerusalem to spend the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, with my parents. "We need to pick some fresh dates so you can give them to your mother for Rosh Hashana."
My mind racing, I stared in shock at the mother of Yotam, my friend who fell in the Second Lebanon War (see here).
"Leah," I finally mumbled, "prophecy has returned to the people of Israel, right here in the secular kibbutz of Maoz Hayim. How else could you have possibly known that I have spent all week searching in vain for fresh dates to bring to my mother for the holiday?"
Leah just smiled. And then she grabbed me by the hand and hustled me outside to assist her and her son with the very rewarding work of collecting two cartons worth of unbelievably luscious dates.
As sweet as the dates are (wow, wow, wow wow...land of milk and HONEY indeed), they cannot compare to the genuine warmth of Leah, her husband Yosi and their two surviving sons. Not only did they insist I see their family as my own, but they made me feel so at home during my visit that all I could think of as my bus drove south to Jerusalem was how quickly I could get a bike that would allow me make the twenty minute trip between our kibbutzim a regular occurrence.
Yossi Gilboa laughed away my suggestion that perhaps there is a touch of destiny in my living so close to the childhood home of a friend whose life set an example that helps explains why I am here. And his wife only smiled when she unknowingly provided me with the very dates that my mother desired.
Normally I would not insist on reading hidden meaning into everyday life. But in a few hours, Jews around the world will gather to ring in the new year with special prayers and ritual foods reserved for the holiday of Rosh Hashana. All the prayers and foods, all the shofar blasts and readings from the Torah, are designed to remind us that there is a creator and a purpose to our lives. Nothing happens purely by accident. Not dates. Not aliyah. And certainly not the enduring influence our friends and family leave on our lives.
Postscript
There is a beautiful line from the prayers of Rosh Hashana that reads, "And when the great shofar is blown, a silent voice is heard." Dema'mah, the silent voice, also means quiet. And so our Sages understand the great shofar to be the day of Shabbat, the beautiful silence of Jewish life that accompanies us throughout the year. This year the first day of Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat and so we will not blow one hundred blasts on the shofar. Instead we will wield the great shofar, and if we are fortunate, be reminded of the gift of Shabbat.
My mind racing, I stared in shock at the mother of Yotam, my friend who fell in the Second Lebanon War (see here).
"Leah," I finally mumbled, "prophecy has returned to the people of Israel, right here in the secular kibbutz of Maoz Hayim. How else could you have possibly known that I have spent all week searching in vain for fresh dates to bring to my mother for the holiday?"
Leah just smiled. And then she grabbed me by the hand and hustled me outside to assist her and her son with the very rewarding work of collecting two cartons worth of unbelievably luscious dates.
As sweet as the dates are (wow, wow, wow wow...land of milk and HONEY indeed), they cannot compare to the genuine warmth of Leah, her husband Yosi and their two surviving sons. Not only did they insist I see their family as my own, but they made me feel so at home during my visit that all I could think of as my bus drove south to Jerusalem was how quickly I could get a bike that would allow me make the twenty minute trip between our kibbutzim a regular occurrence.
Yossi Gilboa laughed away my suggestion that perhaps there is a touch of destiny in my living so close to the childhood home of a friend whose life set an example that helps explains why I am here. And his wife only smiled when she unknowingly provided me with the very dates that my mother desired.
Normally I would not insist on reading hidden meaning into everyday life. But in a few hours, Jews around the world will gather to ring in the new year with special prayers and ritual foods reserved for the holiday of Rosh Hashana. All the prayers and foods, all the shofar blasts and readings from the Torah, are designed to remind us that there is a creator and a purpose to our lives. Nothing happens purely by accident. Not dates. Not aliyah. And certainly not the enduring influence our friends and family leave on our lives.
Postscript
There is a beautiful line from the prayers of Rosh Hashana that reads, "And when the great shofar is blown, a silent voice is heard." Dema'mah, the silent voice, also means quiet. And so our Sages understand the great shofar to be the day of Shabbat, the beautiful silence of Jewish life that accompanies us throughout the year. This year the first day of Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat and so we will not blow one hundred blasts on the shofar. Instead we will wield the great shofar, and if we are fortunate, be reminded of the gift of Shabbat.
Two Ramons and a Samurai
The Jewish year 5769 closed with the bizarre and the tragic.
On Tuesday September 15 a Johns Hopkins University student killed an intruder in his off-campus Baltimore home. As a recent Hopkins graduate all too aware of the Baltimore crime scene, the incident quickly grabbed my attention. The otherwise pedestrian death of a repeat offender soon grabbed everyone's attention, however, because the student killed the intruder with a five foot long samurai sword.
Bizarre. Bizarre enough, in fact, to inspire reams of silly one-liners and even a sarcastic website.
And yet tragic. A man's life cut short, the horror and pain a stark reality no matter how many petty robberies he had on his rap sheet. And a student's life forever altered. With his own hands, in his own home, he cut a man to pieces. Not the easiest memory to forget from his college years.
Two days earlier, Sunday September 13, Israelis began their week with the news that a young air-force pilot had died when his F16 crashed during a routine training exercise. The tragic death of a 19 year old was deepened by the unfairly bizarre identity of the fallen cadet: Assaf Ramon.
Six years earlier, Assaf's father, Ilan Ramon, Israel's first and only astronaut, died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster. Shortly after the tragedy, Assaf indicated that he intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Assaf made good on his pledge, winning acceptance to Israel's elite fighter-pilots course and, like his father, graduating as the valedictorian last fall. When he was recognized as the outstanding cadet, his commanders spoke about his courage and humility, two traits characteristic of his father. And now, like his father, Assaf's mission was cut short. Downed in flight.
Rarely is a soldier's death in training cause for national mourning. Yet Israelis of all stripes mourned the double tragedy of the Ramon family. Many questioned the merit of permitting sons to serve in dangerous units if their family has already suffered the death of a father or elder brother in uniform. Yet Assaf's youth and Ilan's heroism only partly explain the national trauma. With growing fear over Iran's nuclear capabilities, a death in the Ramon family reminds Israelis of Ilan's participation in Israel's daring destruction of the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Politics aside, Israelis mourned with the Ramons because in a society that so often feels like a bickering family, a country where nearly everyone has a son or daughter in the army, no family ever mourns alone.
David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, rightly called attention to the same sentiment when he wrote:
Nobody beyond these borders, however familiar with Israel, can have quite understood the extent of the grief here at the loss of the stellar son of our meteoric astronaut....Assaf Ramon was the scion of a national hero, Ilan Ramon, who was an exemplar of courage and skill, morality and humility--our highest aspirations. Assaf had begun to inherit that mantle. And now he has been downed and shattered
Two deaths this week, one in my old home the other in the new. Although there is little reason to associate the two tragedies, the year 5769 concluded with the two events entwined in my mind. Lives cut short. Forever.
On Tuesday September 15 a Johns Hopkins University student killed an intruder in his off-campus Baltimore home. As a recent Hopkins graduate all too aware of the Baltimore crime scene, the incident quickly grabbed my attention. The otherwise pedestrian death of a repeat offender soon grabbed everyone's attention, however, because the student killed the intruder with a five foot long samurai sword.
Bizarre. Bizarre enough, in fact, to inspire reams of silly one-liners and even a sarcastic website.
And yet tragic. A man's life cut short, the horror and pain a stark reality no matter how many petty robberies he had on his rap sheet. And a student's life forever altered. With his own hands, in his own home, he cut a man to pieces. Not the easiest memory to forget from his college years.
Two days earlier, Sunday September 13, Israelis began their week with the news that a young air-force pilot had died when his F16 crashed during a routine training exercise. The tragic death of a 19 year old was deepened by the unfairly bizarre identity of the fallen cadet: Assaf Ramon.
Six years earlier, Assaf's father, Ilan Ramon, Israel's first and only astronaut, died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster. Shortly after the tragedy, Assaf indicated that he intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Assaf made good on his pledge, winning acceptance to Israel's elite fighter-pilots course and, like his father, graduating as the valedictorian last fall. When he was recognized as the outstanding cadet, his commanders spoke about his courage and humility, two traits characteristic of his father. And now, like his father, Assaf's mission was cut short. Downed in flight.
Rarely is a soldier's death in training cause for national mourning. Yet Israelis of all stripes mourned the double tragedy of the Ramon family. Many questioned the merit of permitting sons to serve in dangerous units if their family has already suffered the death of a father or elder brother in uniform. Yet Assaf's youth and Ilan's heroism only partly explain the national trauma. With growing fear over Iran's nuclear capabilities, a death in the Ramon family reminds Israelis of Ilan's participation in Israel's daring destruction of the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Politics aside, Israelis mourned with the Ramons because in a society that so often feels like a bickering family, a country where nearly everyone has a son or daughter in the army, no family ever mourns alone.
David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, rightly called attention to the same sentiment when he wrote:
Nobody beyond these borders, however familiar with Israel, can have quite understood the extent of the grief here at the loss of the stellar son of our meteoric astronaut....Assaf Ramon was the scion of a national hero, Ilan Ramon, who was an exemplar of courage and skill, morality and humility--our highest aspirations. Assaf had begun to inherit that mantle. And now he has been downed and shattered
Two deaths this week, one in my old home the other in the new. Although there is little reason to associate the two tragedies, the year 5769 concluded with the two events entwined in my mind. Lives cut short. Forever.
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