Simply put, Capitalism is the elephant of which I
speak. Our Jewish community is shouting from the top of the tallest
mountain… Money = happiness.
The
biggest threats to our community are the values of competition,
selfishness, individualism, materialism and consumerism. Meaning with a
barcode, which makes us feel good about ourselves. The direction that
our community has taken is in direct contradiction with basic Jewish
values. Escapism can never be the answer to the lack of fulfillment in
our lives.
Money
as the center of our community’s ambitions is a really big elephant in
the room that we don’t talk about and when the time is right and no one
else is around most people will give the elephant a most intimate and
affectionate hug.
The
Jewish obsession with financial prosperity has limited the potential of
our “other” Jewish wealth - our souls - spiritual aspirations, our
inner abilities to dream. Our hope and potential to create a world that
is built on the humanistic values of Am Yisrael
is slowly disappearing. Obsession with Money has limited us to a
confined room, and rather than looking for a key, we are decorating.
Money = opportunity = position= power = Money
Money = happiness
This
cycle rules our lives. Where has all the fulfillment gone? Why have we
supplemented it with sporadic shots of pleasure? Has fulfillment become
something limited to certain times of the year or certain stages in our
lives? Has fulfillment become a ten day vacation or working for the
weekend? Why is it that the list of rights of passage in one’s life now
includes a mid life crisis?
What
I’m asking is: Would life not have more meaning if we were to have jobs
that defined us—our entire spiritual, educational holistic being. A job
that gives us meaning -one where we would wake up in the mornings
excited for the prospect of it being a new day with new challenges, new
ways to affect change in our lives and society. A reality we engage with
and not want to run away from. What we do today defines who we will be
tomorrow. These ideas are becoming a foreign pipe dream to us and the
thought of how this will limit future generations is despairing.
Capitalism
leads to immorality because it takes away the fact that human beings
are social beings. It makes life a competition where the person with the
most power is the winner. Capitalism does not teach us to love thy
neighbour it teaches us to beat him. Like the control of consumerism we
will never have enough power, one of the roots of capitalism is the
continual perpetuation of the system by us because we all believe that
one day we will see our names at the top spot of the BRW Rich list.
This
culture of competition, of winning “the life game” which has nothing to
do with the ability of the human spirit, is leading us down a path of
destruction, an individualistic and lonely lifestyle that leaves our
souls empty.
Slowly
our Jewish identity is being hijacked by consumerist culture. An
identity based on objectification does not enhance our freedom but leads
us to avoiding what is “real” in life. The consumerist environment is
no longer just related to going to Westfield when I feel down. It’s
seeing our parents solely as providers, seeing our friends as objects,
actively consuming our relationships. In the 21st century it
will be us, generation Y, who are known for giving our loved ones this
advice. Feeling socially vulnerable? Go shopping, it makes you feel
better! Low self esteem? Tease somebody. Having a hard time dealing with
the questions of your life? Weed clears everything up! Our answers of
poker and drugs are not genuine answers yet these are the answers of
today.
Relationships
are only one example, a microcosm of how we engage with our Judaism
today. Rather than seeing it as an all-encompassing way of life that
enhances human beings and fulfills us, we are all still looking for our
quick fix. Aspirations in a vial. Retail therapy, sweeping stuff under
the rug, escapism, drugs. These defense mechanisms might make us feel
good for a moment in time but after that moment has passed we are still
left with a life that leads to isolation and alienation from our loved
ones and ourselves. We need a society of freethinking individuals who
struggle with the harder complexities of what it means to live as a
human being. We need a community of Jews who are more in touch with
themselves, their identity, who they are, who they want to be and how to
see their choices in the context of determining the destiny of the
whole Jewish People.
Capitalism
has become so institutionalized that education is now seen as a chore
and not a virtue. Today learning is not about enriching life, it is
about getting a piece of paper to get a better job with a better salary
to enRICH one’s life. Although everything is telling us otherwise
escapism is not an answer, it’s a quick fix that brings a smile to your
face until you are faced with reality once again. A fix, which we are
building a tolerance for.
To be a nation means to have solidarity between people, where has it gone?
Charity
has become giving our 10 dollars to someone in need. It has become less
about them and more about us. We are trying to give ourselves the
legitimacy not to feel guilty for not living up to our Jewish
responsibilities or, at least, for asking why are there poor people in
the first place? Our responsibility to the rest of our nation and the
world at large is endangered by the way we make decisions not by delving
into their complexities of how choices will affect our lives but by
choosing efficiency and enjoyment because we “need“ answers NOW!. We are
fighting a game of relative poverty where the 20 year old who doesn’t
go to uni or have a car is poor and is less of a person than other
members of our community by virtue of material possession, which leads
to material position. The kid with the coolest game in school--the
“trendsetter”--quickly becomes the cool kid. Not because of how they
treat people, not because of the values they exude, not their life
aspirations but their new Nintendo makes them the measuring stick to how
we are living our lives.
Without
solidarity within the Jewish people there is no Jewish people. No
centre with value. If we carry on with the rat race people will be left
to the way side and are being
left to the wayside. As long as a person goes hungry to bed at night our
Jewish mission is not being fulfilled. We are failing one of our
biggest tests of life. Our responsibility is towards life itself and not
just looking at our lives alone but the beating heart of the Jewish
people. Equality is further away now than it ever has been. We don’t
need to focus on the person who dies of hunger, lets focus on why
parents will give their child a present, a material object as a sign of
affection? The bigger the pooh bear the more my daddy loves me. Since
when was a hug not enough? Why when we have conflict, which is natural,
rather than working through issues and growing as people together we run
to our ipods, go for a fast walk, hit punching bags or buy a Ferrari?
To let off steam is a need but to see that as the solution to our
problems of life is to choose to objectify our own lives.
I ask of you what is in the center of our Jewish community?
Is
it God and the laws of Moses? Is it Zionism and Israel? Is it a Jewish
culture and the nostalgic feeling of being a part of something bigger?
Is that enough?
Or is it materialism? The rat race? Consumerism? Capitalism? A mixture of all of these?
We
are in a downward spiral towards the abyss where we will lose the real
meaning of living a Jewish life. This is not the view of a self hating
Jew. This is the view of a worried member of our community saying our
Jewish moral compass is leading us towards the best seat in synagogue or
the newest Ipod on the market. We are much more worried about our image
than the content of who we really are.
If
I am beautiful, meaning I have a flat stomach, good social abilities
and make enough money to ensure that there is somebody below me on the
monetary ladder then I am “happy”, or at least happier than my
neighbour. A society that defines its members by how many zeros at the
end of their bank account statement is a society that has lost its way.
As
individualism reigns supreme, communication deteriorates. When you have
social class, hierarchy, and the perfect image to keep up with, who has
time for real communication? I am looking for a society where people
give of themselves to other human beings--sharing of themselves insights
into their inner thoughts and feelings? We are educated towards being
carbon copies of societal expectations. In a society that doesn’t allow
us to be unique why would we want to be? Being different is a disease.
And yet the truth remains, all human beings are complex! We all feel a
bit depressed sometimes, we all feel inadequate, we all feel love, we
all have fun. We all should be struggling with the deeper questions of
life but I don’t think we are going to find the answer in Westfield
Bondi Junction where when I walk in I feel like an idolater praying to a
shrine of consumerism.
So what now?
Rather than sitting around next Friday night debating how much your best friends brothers 2nd
wife got for her house in the east of Sydney, lets talk about why we
are Jewish. What connects us to our neighbors? What does it mean to be a
part of a nation that unifies human beings together? What
place does community have in our skewed moral compass? What demand does
that make of us when it comes to thinking of our fellow man?
If only humans could hug humans with the same intimacy as we hug the elephant in the room.
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