Friedman on the Flotilla

Thomas Friedman wrote a column in which he said, much more eloquently, what I was trying to say in my last post:

There is no question that this flotilla was a setup. At the same time, though, the Israeli partial blockade of Hamas and Gaza has been going on for some four years now. It is surely not all Israel's fault, given the refusal of Hamas to recognize Israel and its own repeated missile attacks on Israel.

But I sure know this: It is overwhelmingly in Israel's interest to bring more diplomatic imagination and energy to ending this Gaza siege. How long is this going to go on? Are we going to have a whole new generation grow up in Gaza with Israel counting how many calories they each get? That surely can't be in Israel's interest. Israel has gotten so good at controlling the Palestinians that it could get comfortable with an arrangement that will not only erode its own moral fabric but increase its international isolation. It may be that Hamas will give Israel no other choice, but Israel could show a lot more initiative in determining if that is really so.

I will say again and again that, on whole, this terrible situation is not Israel’s doing, and it’s not their fault. But, it’s still incumbent on Israel to do everything it can to end it. And, not only is it the right thing for Israel to do, but it’s the smart thing.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

The Flotilla, again

I’ve been reading as much as I can about the Flotilla incident in Israel. As I try to make sense of what I’m seeing, I came across Rabbi Paul Kipnes, who had an interesting entry in his blog:

There is ample evidence:

• That this flotilla was set up to be a media event.
• That the soldiers, prepared for non-violence, were attacked with knives, lead pipes and perhaps guns.
• That some organizers of the flotilla were deeply connected to Hamas and possibly other terrorist groups.

Five steps to begin to judge for yourself:

1. Watch this video of how the soldiers were beaten as they boarded the boat.
2. Examine this history of the flotilla and peaceful attempts to turn it back.
3. Read this Jewish Journal article addressing concerns on the flotilla but also on the blockade.
4. Explore the legality of a blockade in times of war.
5. Consider this Haaretz Israeli newspaper critique, appropriate but balanced.

Taken together (especially with the Haaretz article) a picture starts to emerge (which seems, for me, to jibe well with the other pieces I’ve been reading). Israel was clearly in a no-win situation with this one, particular incident. They were enforcing a blockade (which, according to most of what I’ve read, is legal). They were trying to do so without violence, and they were attacked. This flotilla, in large part, was intended to do exactly this – provoke a response, and an international incident.

But, that Haaretz article, along with this piece by Amos Oz, puts some important perspective on the backdrop of this incident. Let me be clear that I think that the Palestinian leadership deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the lack of peace. But, it’s fair to wonder if Israel has done everything that it can to keep itself out of this terrible situation.

The blockade may be (probably is) legal, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a smart move, either politically or militarily. Israel’s larger approach to the ongoing conflict (see the Oz article, which I have real criticisms of, but nonetheless makes some important points) is not the main reason for the ongoing strife, but it may be one reason, among many, that it continues.

Similarly, I wholly believe that Israel has almost always lacked a partner in peace – it’s often been said that we make peace with our enemies, not with our friends. But, it’s also been said, not as pithily, that making peace with someone who wants to use that peace to kill you isn’t a good idea. But, as much as I believe that, can any of us say that Israel has done everything it can to promote the possibility of peace?

Strange as this is to say, I don’t want to be overly evenhanded here. As I keep saying, I do not believe that this is a “cycle of violence” with both sides equally to blame. But, I also don’t think that we gain very much at all from pointing fingers solely at one side, or from pretending that Israel is perfect.

I’ll continue to post materials here that I think shed light on this incident. I’ll hope, probably against hope, that the mainstream media starts to be less biased against Israel. I’ll pray, against all odds, for peace.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Israel and the Flotilla incident

Many of us have been following the unfolding developments in Israel. Israeli’s navy moved to intercept a flotilla of ships which were on their way to deliver aid to Gaza. Violence broke out on one of the ships, and 10 of the people aboard that ship were killed by Israeli commandos. The international community moved swiftly to denounce Israel, and some (such as the Turkish Prime Minister) have gone so far as to declare this to be murder.

Whenever these types of horrific incidents occur, I seem to have a predictable pattern of thoughts and feelings. My first is simply sadness – it saddens me to no end that this country which I love so much is constantly involved in these terrible incidents. Whomever you blame for them, any Zionist (a supporter of Israel) would give anything for this kind of violence to end.

On the heels of that sadness, very quickly I often become worried that Israel might have, in this case, done something truly horrific and wrong. The early reports said that the Israelis had opened fire, completely unprovoked, on the unarmed civilians who were simply joining together in solidarity with the people suffering in Gaza. There have certainly been cases of wrongdoing on the part of the Israeli forces in the past, and I worry that this might be another terrible example, which will haunt our people, and Israel, for years to come.

Quickly, then, I start to remember to take everything with a grain of salt. It seems that whenever Israel is involved in violence, the international community condemns Israel for it, and accuses it of horrific violations of morality and International Law. And, in the course of time, it’s almost always revealed that the facts didn’t exactly match the initial reports, and that Israel wasn’t, in fact, killing indiscriminately, or whatever terrible crime they’re being accused of this time. Despite the outcry from the United Nations and the Hypocritical Country of the Day (Turkey, which is occupying Cyprus in clear violation of International Law, seems very concerned with the legal status of the blockade – a blockade which Israel imposed because Hamas has been importing weapons, which they can do because Israel pulled out of Gaza and ended its own occupation of it. Turkey – home of  hypocritical irony, I guess), Israel is usually justified in the actions in took.

As the facts have started to emerge, the picture of Israel as evil aggressor has, once again, become less clear. If you accept the account of, say the Turkish Ambassador, then things remain very clear – Israeli soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians, for no good reason. They are evil. If, however, you listen to other accounts, then some uncomfortable facts emerge. To name just a few:

• The flotilla had been ordered by the Israeli Navy to dock in Ashdod (in Israel) so that the cargo could be inspected, and then delivered by Israel to Gaza. Israeli wanted to make sure that weapons and other military supplies weren’t being delivered under the cover of humanitarian aid (as has happened before). The response to the order to divert was, as caught in a live broadcast, “F$%K off.”
• Before you say, “we can’t trust Israel to do deliver aid,” remember that Israel currently delivers 15,000 tons of aid to Gaza every week. The flotilla was carrying 10,000 tons of cargo.
• The Israelis boarded 5 ships without incident. On the 6th, the Israelis claim (and video supports the claim) that they were attacked as soon as they got on the boat. They were attacked with knives, metal rods and chairs. Several of the passengers on the boat try to take guns from soldiers (one of the soldiers suffered a gunshot wound). The Israelis opened fire only after they were attacked, and felt that their lives were in danger (they didn’t even open fire immediately once the beatings began).

You can get more such details here, or you can read a good summary and commentary by Rabbi Daniel Gordis.

As I try to always do, let me make clear that none of these deaths are a good thing. I don’t want violence, and I don’t want Israeli soldiers to be killing people. Some of those people, undoubtedly, truly thought that they were doing the right thing and helping people who desperately need help. But, let’s never confuse a tragedy with a crime, or make the mistake of blaming the wrong side.

Israel was presented with a terrible situation, and horrible things happened as a result. But, the organizers of the flotilla could have prevented it all, and still accomplished their stated goal of getting aid to Gaza. Of course, if their true goal was to once again put Israel in a no-win situation, and to gain a p.r. victory, even if it cost lives, then they did exactly what they set out to do.

I pray that Israel’s version of events is closer to the truth than the one being presented by Israel’s enemies. If history is a guide, then I’ll have my prayer answered. But, I’m sad to say that I don’t even hope anymore that the world will see through the lies. The world seems all to eager to blame Israel whenever possible. One more reason that those of us who love Israel had to stand by her.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

An Exorcism

The latest issue of Reform Judaism magazine contains an article about a Reform Rabbi who, at the request of one of his congregants, performed an exorcism on their house. It seems, from the article, that the Rabbi in question did not believe in the literal need for the exorcism. He didn’t think that there were malevolent spirits which lived in the house, which could be banished through the proper recitation of a ritual. Instead, he believed that the ritual was going to fill a need for these congregants, one which they were going to get filled somehow, so it might as well be through him, in a way which was as honest as he could manage.

Those who know me will, no doubt, be very unsurprised by the following two opinions: I think it’s a bad idea to do something like this. And, I see a lot of merit in the other side of the argument.

First, the bad. Spirits aren’t real. Ghosts aren’t real. Religion is a great way to be superstitious, but that is, in my not-as-humble-as-it-probably-should-be opinion, not a good thing about religion. As religious leaders, or as generally intelligent, thinking, religious people, I think part of our job is to get people away from the superstitious aspects of religion.

Ultra-Orthodoxy (the extreme, reactionary, fundamentalist, literalist version of Judaism) is infamous for telling its people that all sorts of horrors will befall them if they make ritual mistakes. Someone in your house sick? You must not have a kosher mezuzah on your door. Got into a car crash? You must have driven that car on Shabbat. And so on. It’s a patently ridiculous theology. It is demonstrably untrue, and it’s not even something we should want to be true. As I’ve said before (more or less), if God really does give people cancer because the parchment inside their mezuzah is defective (an actual claim I’ve heard), then I don’t want to work for that God anymore!

As a Rabbi, I’m often called on to do something which skirts the line of this kind of superstition. The best example is the Mi Sheberach, the prayer that we often say for healing (technically, that’s just one form of that prayer, but don’t worry about that for now). I know that the intent of that prayer, when we say it, is to give people strength and hope. To make people feel supported, and thought of. But, I also know that many people think of it as a kind of totem – if the Rabbi says my name before Mi Sheberach, then I have a better chance of being healed. In these cases, I do my best to teach, clearly and repeatedly, what is, and what isn’t, really going on (that is, I say often that this isn’t a magical healing prayer). And, I acknowledge that some will see it has magic, anyway. I don’t like that, but I can’t control how people interpret their religion.

But, at some point, a prayer, or a ritual, becomes too “magic-ish” to explain away. I don’t know what the line is, or if there is even a exact line at all, but somehow doing an exorcism, for a family which has explicitly told you that they believe that there are spirits infecting their house*, and using elements of a ritual which was clearly, by our definition, superstitious – well, again, everyone has their own line, I suppose, but this is just over it for me. I am a teacher, not a miracle worker. As my Rabbi, Rabbi Jerome Malino (z”l) used to say, “Sorry – I’m in sales, not management.”

* as I think about it, this may be the dividing line in this case. I can pretend and/or hope that people reciting Mi Sheberach won’t see it as magic. This family, based on their own statements, clearly will. Thus, were I to conduct the ritual, I’d be doing it fraudulently.

But, that brings me to the good. The Rabbi in question does a decent job laying out the arguments – to him, it’s not that different from things like Mi Sheberach:

Most Reform Jews don’t believe in intercessory prayer, the idea that God will necessarily give us what we ask for. When most of us ask God to heal those who are ill, we do not expect the Eternal to automatically grant cures; we are really asking God to give them and their healers strength, courage, and hope. This house blessing would then be a personalized misheberach. I would simply be asking God to bring health to a family in need of healing, and try to bring some light into the darkness that surrounds them.

I also heard from another Rabbi, by the name of Geoffrey Dennis (feel free to check out his blog at http://ejmmm2007.blogspot.com/) who defended this practice, and in a fairly convincing way. In the end, I still don’t think that I would do this ritual (I’m not giving an absolute “no,” because these things are always more complicated when you’ve got an actual person making an actual request). But, (with his permission) let me let Rabbi Dennis make his argument:

I love the Enlightenment and endorse the insights of the rationalist tradition, but we are not creatures of pure reason. We are creatures of paradox, like the world itself. Rationalism does not address every need in the human experience. Rituals and their efficacy can be explained rationally if one likes - see Catherine Bell's extensive works, for example, or read some of the work published in the Anthropology of Consciousness journal. To quote Erika Summer Efller,

"Rituals generate group emotions that are linked to symbols, forming the basis for beliefs, thinking, morality, and culture. People use the capacity for thought, beliefs, and strategy to create emotion-generating interactions in the future. This cycle, interaction → emotions → symbols → interaction, forms patterns of interaction over time. These patterns are the most basic structural force that organizes society"

In my (limited) experience, these purgative rituals, judiciously used in conjunction with the more modernist rituals of clinical psychology, help displace negative "emotion-generating interactions" with feelings of confidence, security, and solidarity with the tradition that affirms the values expressed in such rituals.

Human beings are ritual creatures – we’ve always structured our world, in large part, through the creation and performance of rituals. And, those rituals can have a powerful, meaningful, positive effect in so many ways. But, at the same time, rationality can’t be thrown out the window. We can’t claim to believe that which we know to be false, and we shouldn’t be affirming that which we don’t believe.

You know what? It’s hard being an ardent rationalist who believes in the power of ritual. It really is.

But, I guess that’s exactly what I am. So, I’ll have to keep trying to figure out what exactly that means.

Shabbat Shalom!

Idolatry

I often make fun of (or, have fun made of) how often I quote Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (in fairness, if you’re going to quote one Rabbi, he’s really one of the obvious choices!). So, when I was perusing a colleagues blog (which I just came across), I was amused, but not at all surprised, that the most interesting, challenging and inspiring post was about something that Heschel said:

"Why are graven images forbidden by the Torah?" I once heard 20th century Jewish thinker Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel ask. Why is the Torah so concerned with idolatry? You might think (per Rabbi Moses Maimonides) that it is because God has no image, and any image of God is therefore a distortion. But Heschel read the commandment differently. "No," he said, "it is precisely because God has an image that idols are forbidden. You are the image of God. But the only medium in which you can shape that image is that of your entire life. To take anything less than a full, living, breathing human being and try to create God's image out of it-that diminishes the divine and is considered idolatry." You can't make God's image; you can only be God's image.

If you think about it – why the heck would God care if we made a statue? I mean, sure, in ancient times, people were likely to worship those statues, and to think that they were, truly and literally, gods. But, not so much anymore. Is there really any chance that many people in, say, my synagogue are going to start worshiping a statue which looks like a person?

Of course, there are other ways to understand the prohibition against idolatry. Even though few of us will throw stones at Mercury’s statue (that’s what the Talmud says that pagans used to do), it is possible to find someone who thinks that touching a mezuzah will bring them luck. Or that a Rabbi’s prayer will mean more than their own. Or that money will bring them happiness. These are all idolatry, of a sort.

But, as always, Heschel reveals a totally different way to think about things. The problem with idolatry isn’t what it says about God. It’s what it says about us.

You can’t make God’s image; you can only be God’s image.

Middle Politics

I get a bit nervous whenever I let this blog venture towards politics. Partially, that’s because, no matter what I say (or, how wonderfully intelligently I may say it) I know that I’m going to anger at least a few people, and probably start a long, often interesting, but often frustrating comment stream*. Mainly, though, it’s because I’m not a political expert, nor am I a political pundit, and I try to stay away from pretending that I am. Too many Rabbis have gone wrong by assuming that, just because we’re experts in one area, and get to talk about it, publically, quite a bit, we must equally be experts in other areas, as well.

* interestingly, my Facebook feed of this blog tends to get many more comments than the actual comment section on the blog. Someone should figure out how to unify those two into one stream…

But, that apology aside, I’ll risk another foray into political-land. I read an article this morning in The New Republic which I found interesting, in large part because it says something about politics that I’m often trying to say about religion: it’s best when it lays somewhere in the middle.

In talking about Libertarian Rand Paul, who has been in the news quite a bit of late, the article tries to deconstruct what, exactly, is wrong with his politics. And, in doing so, it describes all politics as the balance between two valid desires: the Hobbesian desire for a government to protect us from injustice in the world, and the Lockean desire to protect us from injustice perpetrated by the government itself.

Taken to an extreme, the Hobbesian pole leads to totalitarianism, while the Lockean pole terminates in the quasi-anarchism of the night watchman state.

One of the recurrent themes in my teaching (including here on this blog) is the utter importance of balance, of finding the truth between the two extremes. The world is never black and white; it is always gray. Truth always lies away from the edges – the extremes contain truth, to be sure, but it’s a truth which is usually wrong because of it’s single-mindedness. Think of it, if you like metaphors, as an overwhelmingly powerful spice: disgusting if taken alone, in its pure form; wonderful and enriching if used in moderation along with other flavors.

Well, as someone who always likes to see the virtue in “the other side” I really appreciate the way that this article points out that political disputes in this country are often not between right and wrong; they’re more often between which of those two poles will win out. Do we want to err on the side of the government protecting us, or on the side of protecting ourselves from government? Do we want to risk the government oppressing us, or do we want to risk the world oppressing us?

Most of those debates will continue to go on, of course. How we balance those two poles will always be one of the factors which divide our political world. But, seen through this lens, it becomes apparent that the only guaranteed mistake is to not seek a balance at all, and try to find the answer in either extreme:

Those who give up on that effort and seek instead to realize one notion of justice to the exclusion of the other are history’s political mischief-makers. When untempered by Lockean considerations, the pursuit of Hobbesian justice justifies tyranny in the name of moral righteousness. It is thus a serious danger and a potent threat to civilized life and human freedom. The single-minded pursuit of Lockean justice, by contrast, with its paranoia about imagined wrongs and relative indifference to expressions of actual human suffering, is merely callously ridiculous.

It’s as good of a guideline as any: don’t trust the extremists. Ever.

The Religious Problem

I just heard the first few minutes of a radio interview with Stephen Prothero, the author of the book God Is Not One. The thesis of the book is that the common claim that “all religions are the same, at their core” is actually patently false. From the bit I’ve heard, it actually sounds like an interesting book, and I’m hoping to read it over the summer. Since I haven’t read it, I’m not going to comment on the larger idea behind it, yet. But, one thing he said got my attention.

In the interview, he offered one insight as to why he thinks that it’s silly to claim that we’re all the same. He says that each religion is actually attempting to solve a different problem. And, since that’s true, the answers they give will be radically different.

I found that framing to be really interesting. Christianity, he claims, is trying to solve the problem of “what do we do about sin,” or, perhaps, “how do we gain salvation?” Buddhism is trying to answer, “why is there pain, and how can we stop it?” Those two religions are going to be totally dissimilar, because they have totally different goals. It would be crazy to expect them to wind up in the same place.

In the interview (at least, in the part which I heard), he didn’t offer what Judaism’s problem might be. I have a theory, but I thought it would make for an interesting discussion. What problem do you think Judaism is trying to solve?* If you’re part of a different religion, what problem is that religion trying to solve? And, if you’ve read the book, feel free to offer a quick book review!

* answer: does anything NOT taste better if it’s pickled or fried?