On Post-Assimilatory Jewry - Gershom Scholem

The definition "post-assimilatory" Jew" applies to me. I am a member of a family that had lived in Germany for a long time; I myself was a fourth-generation Berliner. The transition in our family from Orthodox at the beginning of the 19th century to almost total assimilation at the beginning of the 20th was a matter of three generations - from my grand father, through my father, to my own generation; in the third generation, assimilation was complete - or so it seemed. The Jewish post-assimilatory renaissance meant a revolt against the lifestyle of the parent's home or of the circle of families like it. This was a conscious breakaway, a volitional act, a decision - albeit a childish one... My decisions of that period were not clearly formulated, but the fact is that there was a decision to make a post-assimilatory break, at the time; I did not have an abstract conceptual awareness of assimilation. My awareness was an emotional one. This I shared with my contemporaries who joined the Zionist youth movements...

The revolt or the break - in instances like mine - was against self-deceit. A person living in a liberal-Jewish, German-assimilationist environment had the feeling that those people were devoting their entire lives to self-delusion. We did not come to Zionism in search of politics. It is important to understand that for my contemporaries in Germany, Zionism was only to a limited degree (it would be wrong to say not at all) a political Zionism. Some of us, to be sure, went on to become real political Zionists, but the Zionist choice was a moral one, an emotional one, an honesty-seeking response. The honesty did not express itself in the desire for a state, but in a revolt against the lie that Jewish existence was. Jewish reality seemed alive, flourishing, but those who went over to Zionism saw that reality as rotten. Zionism was a revolt against the life-style of the run-of-the-mill bourgeoisie to which my family belonged. This was the milieu in which hundreds of thousands of young Jews grew up in Germany...

I can't explain why a 15-year old boy decides as he does. Something impels him, draws him, after a situation of emptiness, after being surfeited with things that he felt lacked vitality. The members of the assimilatory generation angrily rejected the charges of the children. Papa certainly didn't enjoy hearing me tell him he was deceiving himself. Friday night was observed as a family night. The uncles - my father, his brothers and their families - would get together the way they used to do, more or less, the way assimilated families do. At the Seder, one of the uncles, who knew how to read Hebrew without knowing what he was reading, would recite the Haggada in some kind of sing-song, and everybody sang "Ehad mi yode'a" and "Had gadya." We made something of a mess of it. The melodies were more popular and better remembered than the words.

Zionism as a Constant Revolution - Shlomo Avineri

The essence of Zionism, when it was originated, was to change the abnormal status of the Jewish people. This was a goal which many of the Zionist philosophers believed to be impossible without a state.

Being Jewish from the time of the Exile until the Emancipation, was not just a matter of belief and mitzvot, but also belonging to a community, a congregation. A Jew alone was simply not a Jew (eg minyan, shochet, synagogue, mikve and wedding witnesses.)

Post-Haskala, Secular Jews had to find a new communal meaning to their existence: Zionism restored the public norm aspect to the Jewish people, after the dismantling of the religious public aspect.

What is the difference between Israel and other Jewish concentrations? Other communities are gatherings of individuals, but their place of their togetherness has no intrinsic meaning. On the other hand, Israel's collective existence bears a moral and normative significance. The state of Israel is the public expression of the Jewish people. And as such, it replaces the traditional communal religious boundaries that preserved the Jewish people.

This success has meant that the most unifying factor today across the Jewish world is the State of Israel. More than religion. More than any distressed Jewish community in any state the in world. Over the years world Jewry's relationship to the Zionist movement became similar to the relation that Irish or an Italian immigrant has to their homelands. And even more so, considering the involvement of North American Jewry in Israel is greater than that of an Irish Americans in their homeland. This is a glorious success considering that the Zionist movement began as an insignificant minority within the Jewish people.
Life in the western diaspora was characterized by high percentages of Jewish involvement in middle classes: economically, intellectually, culturally, etc. But when the Zionist revolution began one of its objectives was to turn Jews into a 'normal' nation that included a full range of occupations. This has since changed. Furthermore, materialism, privatization, consumerism, and a 'survival of the fittest' culture are now thriving in Israel. But if Israel shall be only a mirror to world Jewry, if it shall be just another western country, if it shall be just a New-York on the middle east coast, it will stop being such a large center of identification as it is today.

The Zionist revolution is a constant revolution. A revolution aiming to bring the Jewish people into a situation of self-providing both economically and socially. A situation in which the nation is responsible for its own destiny. No longer an abnormal congregation living on the fringes of other nations, dependent on their kindness. Zionism is a constant revolution in the Jewish people's tendency to seek a good existence, by dealing with need of building a national society whose purpose is providing the communities needs, and not a sole concern for the individual. The Zionist revolution is necessarily a social revolution concerning all aspects of life. Therefore, Zionism will not survive if there will be no constant revolution in the Jewish way of life, always seeking the mold itself while updating to reality.

For many years, the greatest struggle of Zionism was the physical existence of the State of Israel. This constant threat was the immediate cause of identification with Israel. Today, Zionism is required to continue its revolution, by forming a unique just and moral society, thus influencing both the whole Jewish and wider world.

On Youth - Herzl

I address the right mind, though I am aware that the right mind is simply not enough. Prisoners who have had a long incarceration would not leave their jails easily. Let us see if the youth have matured enough, the same youth we expect to take the lead. The same youth that carries the elders on their shoulders, the same youth that turns the right mind to enthusiasm.

Sartre on Choice and Freedom

A critical claim in existentialist thought is that individuals are always free to make choices and guide their lives toward their own chosen goal or "project." The claim hold that individuals cannot escape this freedom, even in overwhelming circumstances. For instance, even an empire's colonized victims possess choices: to submit to rule, to negotiate, to act in complicity, to commit suicide, to resist nonviolently, or to counter-attack.

Although external circumstances may limit individuals, they cannot force a person to follow one of the remaining courses over another. In this sense the individual still has freedom of choice. For this reason, individuals choose in anguish: they know that they must make a choice, and that it will have consequences. For Sartre, to claim that one amongst many conscious possibilities takes undeniable precedence (for instance, "I cannot risk my life, because I must support my family") is to assume the role of being an object in the world, rather than a subject or a free agent.

Sartre asserts that even when I don't choose, then I preferred not to choose, and it is still a choice. Thus, for example, on election day, whether you like it or not, you choose how to be. Whether by ballot or by a white slip of abstention from voting, or if you choose with your feet not to show up or not to reach for the ballot, you still choose a "non-choice." This choice is our humanity, continues Sartre, and it is our fate as human beings that we will always live in a state of freedom and choices, even when we do not wish to.

Millions of People All Alone - Gadi Taub

The idea of authenticity of the individual is so well accepted among us that we are unaware of the depressing world of loneliness we live in, a world in which all people look only inwards, a world in which Narcissism is ideology. The problem with Narcissism is not its egotism, but rather its loneliness and alienation. The American world in which someone fall down in the street and you don't go to help the for the fear that he will sue you is not merely an incidental result of individualism. Within this individual's authentic self-loyalty lays the most pessimistic instinct: that everybody must look out for themselves.

The Kvutza as an Answer to the Inner Struggle of the Human Being - Yitzhak Tebenkin

There is an enormous force in people - the force of customs - that is an education of thousands of years. We are accustomed to the path of separation. The idea of unification destroys the order that we are used to living in. We are accustomed to living in the light of competition. This is how society accustomed us to live. But the demand now is to live in fraternity and with unified forces. The idea for which we unify, and which makes us the chalutzim of today's society, is the idea of the commune, of collaboration. The faith in human beings, in their strength, their creation, their war, negates the idea of competition and the goal of being totally able to not depend on others.

The main content of the movement, and the necessary path, is the path of the kvutza, because there won't be any freedom if society is not based on the forces of collaboration, help, and mutual responsibility. We are not optimist-utopists who believe that human beings are naturally good. We know that human beings aren't only good, we know that there also exist forces of competition and that we are not only motivated by fraternity, but also by hatred and egotism. And this idea of kvutza is of a society that doesn't compete and where the human being fights on its behalf in an inner war against his tendencies.

The main idea of Tnuat HaAvoda is that of collaboration and cooperation. The thing that was created in the world workers movement isn't only a public war, but also an inner spiritual war. And our movement in Israel calls for human beings to fight against themselves...

...We have no illusions, we know the path doesn't lead itself. It is important that we can see our path within the atmosphere around it.

Sacrifice? - Rachel

 M. Beilinson's remarks about the Second Aliyah seem very strange to me. He paints a tragic picture of the heroic struggles of a few pioneers who sacrificed their lives on behalf of their homeland. But I see them differently. They didn't sacrifice themselves. They conquered a new world; they stood on a mountain peak, breathed the fresh clean air and saw the dawn of a new

age.

But let me deal with the details. "They left developed, cultured societies ... " They did not. They left the small, wretched village or town of their birth - a place of age-old poverty and despair that has nothing to do with "developed, cultured society." World literature is full of descriptions of such places and the youth who suffer and die there.

"They abandoned their middle class lives ... " Such words would be understandable if spoken by a middle class Jew for whom his society encompasses all that is good and true in life. But from M. Beilinson? Why does he feel he must mourn a lifestyle that is opposed, in essence, to the Zionist dream? He himself thinks that that kind of life is monstrous - for what does he

mourn?

"They left despite the opposition of world figures ... " Moshe Beilinson does not know how little the chalutzim cared about world figures? They didn't care either because they were naive youngsters, or because they despised politics to a certain degree. But they didn't care.

"They left to a homeland that existed only in their dreams ... " Doesn't M. Beilinson know that for youth a dream is very real if it has the power to push them to action?

"They came here to build a new life ... " As if every youth (if he is really a youth) doesn't seek a new life? As if sleeping in a stable isn't much preferable to an easy, comfortable life for anyone who is really young?

"They came to a land whose inhabitants were strangers ... " But there wasn't any reason to meet the inhabitants, and that didn't bother them as much as the lack of nationalist feeling amongst their own people.

"They lived year after year without joy and celebration ... " To get up in the morning and set out, not for the school or the office, but to the fields, to that wonderful meeting with nature and the land - that isn't joy? To sow and to plant and to join God in the act of creation; to be together with other young people who dream and hope like you- that isn't joy? And to dance throughout the night and to ride bareback across the land and to hike each spring through the Galil - that is

life without joy?

I agree with M. Beilinson's main point that it all took courage. But he sees their courage in their sacrifice of the good life on behalf of a new life here. I see their courage in their willingness to be true to themselves, in their audacity in doing so here in their reviving homeland.

The Rebels - Moshe Beilinson

They left developed, cultured societies in the midst of a social revolution which promised a new world. They left centuries-old large Jewish communities with a rich web of community organisations. They abandoned their middle class lives and background. They abandoned those most precious of human treasures - the mother tongue and the culture of birth. They left all this

without any collective framework or youth movement support, without public recognition or encouragement, without any certainty that anyone backed them at all. They left as individuals, isolated and despised by the masses. They left despite the indifference of the middle class, even that part which called itself "Zionist". They left despite the opposition of world figures, be they English lords or socialist leaders.

They left in confusion, in rebellion, almost in despair, without any assurance that they would not be the last pioneers as well as the first. They left sometimes without believing that all this made any difference; that someone would continue their rebellion. They left their country of birth to travel to their "homeland" - a homeland that existed only in their dreams. They came here to begin a new life, both materially and spiritually, in a language that they did not yet know. 

They came here to begin a life of physical labour, unused to it and unaware of all it entailed. They came to a land whose inhabitants were strangers, much stranger than the Russian or Polish peasant; they came without any way to bridge that gap. They came to a land ruled by an uncultured, rotten regime without any possibility of negotiation or communication. They came here to a small, backward Jewish community with a different set of values and different world view. They met here a few Zionist settlers who had lost any desire for independence, as if they had forgotten why they came here in the beginning. These settlers didn't accept the newcomers with joy, but were suspicious and sought to hinder their progress, if only from a lack of understanding of the newcomers' spirit and goals. They came here as individuals - a few dozen, a few hundred - scattered across the land. They lived here year after year without joy, without celebration, in continual struggle with the new climate and unfamiliar conditions. They lived here in loneliness, with one eye always to the horizon, seeking a sign that some new boatload of pioneers was on its way to join them. But the boat never arrived.

They lived almost without hope that something would change, that the sacrifice was not in vain. They lived in the shadow of fear that the Zionist movement had reached a dead end. They saw a Zionist movement whose leader was dead, and whose untalented successors continued without belief and without vision.

And they came to live here in poverty, fighting disease, their lives continually in danger. They lived without any organization, without organs of mutual aid, without cultural institutions or Kupat Cholim. They lived without moshavim, without kibbutzim, without any organised workers' settlements, without the idea of such a thing, in the beginning. Instead, they searched for a living as simple hired workers.

They did all this for years, and remained faithful to themselves and their values. And in the meantime they accomplished a miracle. They built the basis of a Jewish workers' society. They laid the foundation of a revived Hebrew culture, they created the kvutza, the kibbutz, a newspaper and a web of cooperative institutions. They did more than that. They created a new man - the Jewish worker,devoted, honest, resourceful; new kinds of relationships amongst men, between men and women, a new style of public life.

They created a community of proud Jewish workers who lived on their own labour, and who despise exploitation and greed.

All this required courage. The Jewish people has few other examples of such courage; the Zionist movement has none at all. The Jewish workers' society of today stands in gratitude and respect toward those few who rebelled against the reality of Jewish life and who understood the path upon which the Jewish people needed to embark. 

Zion and the Youth - Martin Buber

The youth are humanity's eternal possibility for happiness. The possibility occurs repeatedly and humanity misses it again and again. Generations of people in their twenties return to the stage again and again with the passion of absolute yearning in their hearts, devoted to ideals, ready and waiting to break through the blocked gates of Eden.

Nothing stands between this generation and the fulfillment of its obligation but the deed itself; and hence they prepare themselves. But in the hour of preparation the abundance of minute and marginal goals from the society around them take control of the youths' spirits. Vain urges of egotism and the urges for excellence and arrogance take control of them. Their environment preaces the perception that the "facts" are stronger than the ideals and that we are subjected to a sequence of events that we cannot in any way change, shape, or control.

Freedom From and Freedom To - Erich Fromm

"What is freedom as a human experence? Is the desire for freedom something inherent in nature? ... Is freedom the absence of external pressure or is it also the presence of something - and if so, what? ... Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from?"

Fromm distinguishes between "freedom from" and "freedom to." The former refers to the process of becoming emancipated from the restrictions placed on humanity by other people or institutions. This has often been fought for historically but is not of much inherent value unless accompanied by a creative element, "freedom to"; the use of freedom to behave in ways which are constructive and respond to the genuine needs and wants of the free individual/society by creating a new system of social order. In the process of becoming emancipated from an overbearing authority or set of values, Fromm argues, we are left with feelings of emptiness and anxiety (he likens this process to the individuation of infants in the normal course of child development) that will not abate until we use our "freedom to" and develop some form of replacement of the old order.

Laz - Zika - Martin Buber

There are two ways one person can relate to another in this world:
The first - "I - You" The second - "I - It"

We're walking on our path and we meet another person walking on his. All we know is the road that we walked on, and we don't know the road the other person has walked on. It is a coincidence that we met, nevertheless our relationship is valuable. While we look at the person in front of us, we decide how we'll behave: will we warmly greet the person, or will we ignore them? Will we try to be open and honest, or maybe closed? Will we be indifferent about the road that he's walking on, or maybe the opposite - we could ask him where he's coming from and where he's going to, and we can show curiosity towards all that happens to him. The question "what is our wish/intention we carry when we approach a conversation," is the first and most basic question that we shall ask ourselves. One wish is to form a relationship of "I - It" type. The "It" is the other. The unknown. The distant. The frightening. The "It" is for us just a shaky bunch of qualities, that will never be linked strong enough to form a whole human being. Another wish is to form a relationship of affinity, the "I - You" type. The other person isn't an object. I don't have any prejudice towards him. I see him as a whole human being that has wills, dreams, loves, and disappointments. He's complex and multi-colored and it's impossible to put one label on him. In every encounter that we have, we choose our relationship to our world: Is this a world of people who see each other as "It," that are all strangers to each other, or is this a world of "I - You," where people are seeking of human contact, where people are looking for other people?

Reuven and Shimon - Martin Buber

Let us imagine two human beings, sitting one beside the other, having a conversation - Reuven and Shimon - see if we can count the number of faces acting in this play.

Firstly - here is Reuven the way he wishes to be seen by Shimon, and Shimon the way he wishes to be seen by Reuven. Reuven as he really appears to Shimon, that is Shimon's image in Reuven's eyes, that usually isn't the same with the image wanted by Shimon, and vice versa.

Add to this Reuven as he is in his won eyes and Shimon as he is in his own eyes.
Lastly, Reuven and his inner world, and Shimon's inner world.

Two living human beings, six imaginary characters.
A truly spooky crowd.
 Often involved in a conversation of two!

If so, what is really real in human dialogue?

On the Kibbutz - Yitzhak Tabenkin

The kibbutz preceded the State of Israel. The establishment of the collective came before there was any state authority. It was not coincidental that the establishment of the kibbutz movement led to solving the problems of paramount importance. The kibbutz created new perspectives towards social, economic, and personal attitudes. Man's horizon was widened. His whole world was influenced.

It all started from the moment the kibbutz ceased to be an incident in a person's life and became a way of life. This entailed a different attitude towards economic, national, and social problems which enabled each individual to fulfill his mission and enhanced each person's value in the... A hundred people in a commune are much more powerful than a hundred individuals elsewhere. The collective is a source of strength...

The kibbutz movement established our agriculture and industry. It founded a new system of equality including our youth movement.

...I am not going to claim that without kibbutz, there is no solution to the problems of the existence of the Jewish people. But no doubt, the kibbutz way of life promises a broader foundation and... tempo of establishing the National Jewish homeland.

Kibbutz is no longer a utopia. It is a valuable time in the life of our people, our country. Kibbutz is a historical fact of life...

From the Address to the 9th Convention of Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed - Yitzhak Rabin

I used to be a member of the movement; I grew up in this movement where we slept in cabins. Cabins that were hot in the summer and, in the winter, leaked from the rain. I was among those who did Hachshara. I ended up in the Palmach, the Tzahal, and the rest we all know…

I came here today to greet you, but not only that, I also came to demand of you…

What do I expect of you? I was told by the mazkir that the issue for your discussion is: “Israeli society in times of peace.” Of course we have to look at the image of society once we will achieve peace, but we are still striving towards peace. The first thing I expect from this movement and from many others in this country is: Deal with the killers of peace! Deal with the Arabs and the Jews who are the killers of peace.

If there won’t be a movement of young people – and I mean your movement – that will know how to stand up, to support peace, and to resist the killers – those who want to assassinate peace… This is the movement that you have to be. This is your future.

The second thing is: Don’t accept conventions. Not in society, nor in any other fields. Whether it’s a society, a state, or any other kind of entity that does not know how to create change, it is an entity that has gone withered. The reality of today is different than the reality of fifty years ago in every aspect. If there is anything that is unique about youth, it’s the tendency towards rebellion against conventions. That is, not just for the sake of being a rebel, but for the sake of creating change…

This is why I place this demand on you – the youth movements. The youth movements in our times built an army and we built settlements because that was the need of the hour. Today the needs are different, more varied, and present more challenges for you to face. You will be tested in your ability to continue and change what there is to be changed. I wish for you to be like that. I believe you can be like that and, together, adults and youngsters, we will march this country into peace, security, prosperity and success.

On Educating Children - Janusz Korczak

Understanding their vulnerability: Children have little power and are therefore easily exploited and disempowered. This leads to a need for a pedagogy of "Stewardship" and the need to create a safe space for children to express themselves without the fear of being exploited.

Understanding their uniqueness: This is the key to nurturing children. We need to understand the spark in each child, respect the mystery in each child and therefore, while we try to understand and work with their uniqueness we should not try to reduce each young person to a totally understood human being. We need to lead each child to where they need to go. It is not about "making you into something" rather about helping "make you what you can make of yourself."

Understanding meaning making: Children are involved in a process of making meaning of their selves, their surroundings, their community, and their world. Educators have the power to shape the narrative within which this meaning making takes place.

Understanding community: To enable all the above to happen, it is important to create a community for these to happen and to enable the educators to ask the central questions: Who is the child? What is their greatest gift? What do they fear? How can we make them feel valued?

On Moratorium - Reuven Kahane

Moratorium is an arrangement that allows postponement of commitment, responsibility, decisions, and obligations, to allow "trial and error" in a wide range within institutionalized boundaries and outside of them. In a more active manner, we can describe moratorium as a situation in which trial and error are not just legitimate, but also encourages, and no punishment is given for "wrong" normative actions. It can be viewed as the realm between borderless indulgence and free reign, and behavior based on well defined borders. Paradoxically, expanding the range of experimentation and accepting straying from norms create the conditions for development of behavior which is both normative and inventive at the same time.

Moratorium allows experimentation with various roles (which might not fit into what society generally expects), and self-examination to eventually come to the truth, before accepting commitment.

Jewish Memory - Avraham Infeld

When I came to study in Israel, I wrote my dad a letter saying I would be studying Jewish History. He said "What, they teach Jewish History at the Hebrew University? There is no such thing as Jewish history. Gentiles have history, Jews have memory." The most important part of being a Jew is a sense of Jewish memory.

That is why the verb that appears most in our ritual is Z'chor, Zecher, Zicharon. Remember, remember, remember. If someone asks me to describe who is a Jew in one sentence, I would say, "a Jew is one who is strictly forbidden from suffering amnesia.

Imagine a couple about to get married, they are in love. Their parents have spent a fortune on the caterer. They get under the chuppa, and what is the first thing they do? Break a glass. Why? To remember the destruction of Jerusalem.

Believe me, I have never met a couple who have spent the first night of their marriage worrying about the destruction of the Temple. But you cannot build a Jewish family, build a new Jewish home, you cannot create Jewishly without calling upon Jewish memory. And my father was right. What is the difference between history and memory? History is knowing what happened in the past. Memory is asking how does what happened in the past impact on who I am today.

That is why we don't teach our children that our forefathers came out of Egypt. We teach them that each person must see oneself as if he or she personally came out of Egypt. The challenge to the Jew is how do you take this collective memory of this people and make it a part of your life.

As a child in South Africa, a major holiday in our home was Shavuot. I used to walk around the dining room table with a basket of fruit singing songs about fruits and the harvest. But it was stupid. It was the wrong season. I was in the wrong hemisphere! You pray for rain at the wrong time. You know why? Because as a Jew you don't function out of your own personal needs, you function out of a collective memory of a people.

A Call for the Separation of Religion and State - Yehoshua Leibowitz

Separation of religion and state is the slogan heard from time to time in public debate in Israel. It is not, however, the actual policy of any party or political group. The slogan is raised as the expression of a theoretical position in "secular" circles, but its advocates do not regard it seriously as a political demand to be realized in the present. They do not attempt to clarify its meaning nor do they propose a plan for embodying it in law and government. Their struggle is limited to episodic clashed with religious or pseudo-religious aspects of administrative behavior or legislative action. At the same time, official religious Jewry, its spiritual leaders and political representatives, who rejected the idea of separation and supported the existing relation between state and religion, never accounted for their own position. It is doubtful whether they have ever critically examined it. A struggle over the relation of religion and the state has never really been conducted between the religious and secular in Israel. Out of sheer opportunism, both sides accept the reality of a secular state with a religious façade.

In these pages the demand for separation of religion and state will be presented from a religious viewpoint, from which the present relations between the state and the Torah appear as Hillul Hashem, contempt of the Torah, and a threat to religion. Two prefatory remarks are necessary in order to clarify this position.

First, the religion with which we are concerned is traditional Judaism, embodies in Torah and Mitzvoth, which claims sovereignty over the life of the individual and the life of the community - not a religion which can be satisfied with formal arrangements grafted on to a secular reality.

Second, the state of which we speak is contemporary Israel, a state defined by its manner of coming into being in 1948 and its mode of existence from then onward - not the state as an ideal. In other words, the relation of religion and state is not discussed here as an article of faith. We shall not inquire as to what, in principle, should be the relation between "religion" (in general) and "state" (in general), nor seek to demarcate "the holy," "the secular," the historical, or the metaphysical essence of the Jewish people as the people of the Torah. We are concerned with determining what sort of political-social organization would be in the religious interest in the existing situation.

The state of Israel that came into being in 1948 by the common action, effort, and sacrifices of both religious and secular Jews was an essentially secular state. It has remained essentially secular and will necessarily continue to be such, unless a mighty spiritual and social upheaval occurs among the people lining here. The secularity of this state is not incidental but essential. The motivation and incentive for its foundation were not derived from the Torah. Its founders did not act under the guidance of the Torah and its precepts. It is not conducted by the light of the Torah. That "the state of Israel is a state ruled by law and not a state governed by Halakhah" is recognized by all - including the religious - as the principle governing the activity and administration of this state, in which official religious Jewry has participated since its establishment. Whether we are religious or secular, we brought this state about by dint of our common efforts as Jewish patriots, and Jewish patriotism - like all patriotism - is a secular human motive not imbued with sanctity. Holiness consists only in observance of the Torah and its Mitzvoth: "and you shall be holy to your God." We have no right to link the emergence of the state of Israel to the religious concept of messianic redemption, with its idea of religious regeneration of the world or at least of the Jewish people. There is no justification for enveloping this political-historical event in an aura of holiness. Certainly, there is little ground for regarding the mere existence of this state as a religiously significant phenomenon.

Even from the standpoint of religious awareness and faith, this Jewish state is in the same category as the kingdoms of Yarov'am, Ahab, Menasseh, and Herod were in their time. A person does not and may not sever his connection with a criminal parent, nor may a parent repudiate a son who has gone astray. Likewise, the Jew, including the religious Jew, may not dissociate himself from this state. However, though we fully recognize its legitimacy, it is necessary to confront the secular state and society with the image of a religious society and state, that is of a state in which the Torah is the sovereign authority. What is truly illegitimate is the surreptitious introduction, by administrative action of religious items into the secular reality so as to disguise its essential secularity.

The demand for the separation of religion from the existing secular state derives from the vital religious need to prevent religion from becoming a political tool, a function of the governmental bureaucracy, which "keeps" religion and religious institutions not for religious reasons but as a concession to pressure groups in the interest of ephemeral power-considerations. Religion as an adjunct of a secular authority is the antithesis of true religion. It hinders religious education of the community at large and constricts the religious influence on its way of life. From a religious standpoint there is no greater abomination than an atheistic-clerical regime. At present we have a state - secular in essence and most of its manifestations - which recognizes religious institutions as state agencies, supports them with its funds, and, by administrative means, imposes, not religion, but certain religious provisions chosen arbitrarily by political negotiation. All the while, it emphasizes its rejection of guidance by Torah ("a state ruled by law, not by Halakhah"). We have a rabbinate invested by the state, which receives its appointment, authority, and pay from the secular government and confines itself, therefore, to the functions that this government allots to it. It is a religion whose position in the state parallels that of the police, the health authorities, the postal services, or customs. There is no greater degradation of religion than maintenance of its institutions by a secular state. Nothing restricts its influence or diminishes its persuasiveness more than investing secular functions, with a religious aura; adopting sundry religious obligations and proscriptions as glaring exceptions into a system of secular laws; imposing an arbitrary selection of religious regulations on the community while refusing to obligate itself and the community to recognize the authority of religion; in short, making it serve not God but political utility.

This is a distortion of reality, a subversion of truth, both religious and social, and a source of intellectual and spiritual corruption. The secular state and society should be stripped of their false religious veneer. Only then will it become possible to discern whether or not they have any message as a Jewish state and society. Likewise, the Jewish religion should be forced into taking its stand without the shield of an administrative status. Only then will its strength be revealed, and only thus will it become capable of exerting an educational force and influencing the broader public.

Against this argument, religious circles claim that such separation would make the social and perhaps even physical existence of religious Jews within the secular state and society unbearable and compel Jews to forsake their religious way of life. These arguments stem, to some extent, from naïveté, from misunderstanding the implications of separation of religion and state for the conduct and administration of state and society. To some extent they only pretend naïveté and veil vested interests. In effect, such separation would not in the least narrow the possibilities open to religious Jews of living according to their wont. It would even foster the expressions of religious life in the community at large. Let us attempt to gain a realistic view of the consequences of separating religion and state.

Right Against Right - Amos Oz

I have tried to describe, perhaps a little too starkly, both the view that regards the dispute as a kind of western with the civilized good guys righting the blood-thirsty natives, and also the romantic conceptions that endow it with the attributes of an ancient epic. As I see it, the confrontation between the Jews returning to Zion and the Arab inhabitants of the country is not like a western or an epic, but more like a Greek tragedy. It is a clash between right and right (although one must not seek a simplistic symmetry in it). And, as in all tragedies, there is no hope of a happy reconciliation based on a clever magical formula. The choice is between a bloodbath and a disappointing compromise, more like enforced acceptance than a sudden break-through of mutual understanding. 

True, the dispute is not 'symmetrical'. There is no symmetry between the constant, eager attempts of Zionism to establish a dialogue with the local Arabs and those of the neighboring states, and the bitter and consistent hostility the Arabs, with all their different political regimes, have for decades shown us in return. 

But it is a gross mistake, a common over-simplification, to believe that the dispute is based on a misunderstanding. It is based on full and complete understanding: we have repeatedly offered the Arabs goodwill, good neighborliness and cooperation, but that was not what they wanted from us. They wanted us, according to the most moderate Arab formulation, to abandon the idea of establishing a free Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and that is a concession we can never make. 

It is the height of naivety to believe that but for the intrigues of outsiders and the backwardness of fanatical regimes, the Arabs would realize the positive side of the Zionist enterprise and straightaway fall on our necks in brotherly love. 

The Arabs did not oppose Zionism because they failed to understand it but because they understood it only too well. And that is the tragedy: the mutual understanding does exist. We want to exist as a nation, as a State of Jews. They do not want that state. This cannot be glossed over with high-sounding phrases, neither the noble aspirations to brotherliness of well-meaning Jews, nor the clever Arab tactics of 'We will be content, at this stage, with the return of all refugees to their previous place of residence.' Any search for a way out must start from a fundamental change of position preceded by the open-eyed realization of the full extent of the struggle: a tragic conflict, tragic anguish. 

We are here because this is the only place where we can exist as a free nation. The Arabs are here because Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinians, just as Iraq is the homeland of the Iraqis and Holland the homeland of the Dutch. The question of what cultural assets the Palestinians have created here or what care they have taken of the landscape or the agriculture is of no relevance to the need to discuss their right to their homeland. Needless to say, the Palestinian owes no deference to God's promises to Abraham, to the longings of Yehuda Hallevi and Bialik, or the achievements of the early Zionist pioneers. 

Current talk about pushing the Palestinian masses back to oil-rich Kuwait or fertile Iraq makes no more sense than would talking about our own mass emigration to 'Jewish' Brooklyn. Knaves and fools in both camps might add: 'After all, they'll be among their brothers there.' But just as I am entitled to see myself as an Israeli Jew, not a Brooklyner or a Golders Greener, so a Palestinian Arab is entitled to regard himself as a Palestinian, not an Iraqi or Kuwaiti. The fact that only an enlightened minority of Palestinians seem to see it that way at the moment cannot prejudice the national right to self-determination when the time comes. Let us remember with all the reservations the comparison requires - that it was only a Zionist-minded minority of Jews that - justly! - claimed the right to establish a Hebrew State here in the name of the entire Jewish people for the benefit of the Jews who would one day come to a national consciousness. 

This land is our land. It is also their land. Right conflicts with right. To be a free people in our own land' is a right that is valid either universally or not at all.

On Hitmodedut

Hitmodedut is a Hebrew word that has no precise English definition but the closest equivalent would be “a grappling with”. The Hebrew word comes from the Hebrew root MADAD. MADAD gives us the word for measurement and the word for coping. 

It is not by coincidence, though, that the term for measurement and coping are related.

To cope with something, to deal with something, can be a passive act, can be an act of something happening to you and you suffering the consequences.  But coping can be active as well. Coping can be the active sizing of yourself in the face of a difficulty.  To deal with an issue can be to see yourself in that issue and understand how you would respond to it.  And this is where measurement comes in.

Lehitmoded (the infinitive of hitmodedut) in Hebrew means to deal with, cope with, but it also can mean to measure oneself.  When you lehitmoded with someone, you are facing that person.  You are sizing yourself; you are seeing how you measure up to them. And what is important in this process is seeing how you are different from that person. The measurements will never be the same, and yet this is exactly what makes you equal. Understanding yourself in the situation, understanding the person you are facing in the situation, and accepting that person - this is hitmodedut.  Hitmodedut can only come from a place of love. Hitmodedut involves seeing the person for who they are and seeing them for who they can be.  Hitmodedut is harnessing the unique spark inside every human being and making it shine brighter. 

Truly, even in a hitmodedut with a person, you face yourself, for when measuring another person, you hold a mirror up to yourself.  This mirror reflects back upon you the demands you place on another person.

When measuring another and measuring yourself, you gain an understanding of exactly where the next step needs to be in order to facilitate growth. This also places a responsibility on you to take that step with the person, to show them the way, to see yourself in the mirror taking the step alongside them.

The Manifesto - Gaza Youth Breaks Out

Fuck Israel. Fuck Hamas. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNRWA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, Fatah, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom. We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope. The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened 30th November, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization (www.sharek.ps) with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working. A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them? We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war. We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.

This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect.  We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under. We will build dreams where we meet walls.

And If Not Now, When? - Martin Buber

        I frequently hear some among us saying: "We too want the  spirit of Judaism to be fulfilled; we too want the Torah to issue  forth from Zion, and we know that to realize this purpose the  Torah must not be mere words, but actual life; we want God's  word on Zion to become a reality. But this cannot happen until  the world again has a Zion, and so first of all we want to  build up Zion, and to build it with every possible means." It may, however, be characteristic of Zion that it cannot be built  with "every possible means," but only bemishpat (Is. 1:27),  only "with justice." It may be that God will refuse to receive his sanctuary from the hands of the devil. Suppose a man  decided to steal and rob for six years, and in the seventh, to  build a temple with the fortune thus amassed; suppose he succeeded would he really be rearing temple walls? Would he not  rather be setting up a den of robbers (Jer. 7:11), or a robber's  palace, on whose portals he dares to engrave the name of God?  It is true that God does not build his own house. He wants us  to build it with our human hands and our human strength,  for "house" in this connection can mean only that at long last  we may begin to live God's word on earth! But after we have  laid the foundations of this house by his means, bemishpat, do you really imagine that God is not strong enough to let it be finished by those same means? If you do imagine that, stop  talking about Judaism, Jewish spirit, and Jewish teachings! For  Judaism is the teaching that there is really only One Power  which, while at times it may permit the sham powers of the  world to accomplish something in opposition to it, never permits such accomplishment to stand. But whatever is done in  the service of that power, and done in such a way that not only the goal but the means to that goal are in accord with the  spirit of justice, will survive, even though it may have to struggle for a time, and may seem in great peril, and weak compared to the effective sham powers.   

I should like to bring a concept of the utmost importance  home even to those who cannot or will not understand the language of religion, and therefore believe that I am discussing theology. I am speaking of the reality of history. In historical reality, we do not set ourselves a righteous goal, choose whatever way to it an auspicious hour offers, and, following that  way, reach the set goal. If the goal to be reached is like the  goal which was set, then the nature of the way must be like  the goal. A wrong way, that is, a way in contradiction to the  goal, must lead to a wrong goal. What is accomplished through  lies can assume the mask of truth; what is accomplished  through violence, can go in the guise of justice, and for a  while the hoax may be successful. But soon people will realize that lies are lies at bottom, that in the final analysis, violence  is violence, and both lies and violence will suffer the destiny history has in store for all that is false. I sometimes hear it said that a generation must sacrifice itself, "take the sin upon itself," so that coming generations may be free to live righteously. But it is self-delusion and folly to think that one can lead a dissolute life and raise one's children to be good and happy; they will usually turn out to be hypocrites or tormented.

Indoctrination Vs. Education - Anton Marks

I’d like to begin by stating that if you are a member of a Jewish youth group that considers itself to be apolitical and/or non-ideological, then please don’t automatically assume that this discussion is irrelevant to your setting - the method, content and intent in transmitting religious tradition can also be considered indoctrination if not dealt with ethically.

Furthermore, if we were to group the various youth movements into those that define themselves as ideological and those which don’t, the latter are often quick to criticize the former for practicing indoctrination. However, doesn’t imbuing chanichim with a strong sense of Jewish identity and the placing of a negative value-judgment on assimilation open up both groupings to a vulnerability of immoral practices?

However, I would like to concentrate primarily on those movements that profess to hold a specific ideology over and above their basic Jewish nature. Those movements endeavor to build an educational process within the movement: weekly meetings, summer and winter camps, weekend seminars, a year program in Israel etc, etc. Indeed, many movements employ full-time chinuch (education) workers to facilitate a coherent educational message throughout a members’ movement career.

I have heard education described as objective and indoctrination subjective. However, no educator can be entirely objective, nor would it be desirable for them to be so. Movement madrichim do not act in a value free way. Education, whether it takes place in the moadon or on the campsite, must be informed by certain values. These values should inform both the content of conversations and encounters, as well as our behaviour and relationships as educators.

Dr. Lawrence Cremin, who wrote the definitive history of education in America, defines all education as "the deliberate, systematic and sustained effort to transmit, evoke or acquire knowledge, attitudes, values or sensibilities as well as the outcome of that effort." Therefore, education in any form is about transmission and thus could wrongly be construed as indoctrination.

Hence to the dilemma: what separates education from indoctrination? Education embraces a commitment to respect for people, the promotion of well-being, truth, democracy, fairness and equality. Promoting questioning from the chanich and authenticity on the part of the madrich are vital elements for an ethical educational process.

Let’s first look at the importance of encouraging questioning on the part of the chanich. According to I.A. Snook (Concepts of Indoctrination, London, 1972), “Indoctrination is the teaching of what is known to be false as true, or more widely the teaching of what is believed true in such a way as to preclude critical inquiry on the part of learners.” Hence it is vital to create an environment conducive to the chanich challenging the content being imparted.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber discusses the role of authenticity for an educator. "For educating characters you do not need a moral genius, but you do need a man who is wholly alive and able to communicate himself directly to his fellow beings." When that connection is made, the student "accepts the educator as a person. He feels he may trust this man, that this man is...taking part in his life, accepting him before desiring to influence him. And so he learns to ask." Buber's attitude is that before there can be teaching, there must be a relationship. When the teaching takes place, it is not about absolutes. What the teacher should do is "to answer a concrete question, to answer what is right and wrong in a given situation."

On the other hand, the position of power and influence that movement leaders find themselves in can often be abused, with kids sometimes hanging-on to their every word. Ego-inspired hadracha leads to an unhealthy relationship whereby madrichim become idolized and that is when indoctrination is prone to occur.

I.A. Snook relates to these power relations when he states, “Teachers are in a strong position to indoctrinate, as their pupils are usually in no position to judge the truth or reasonableness of what they are being taught.”

A movement with an educational message is not problematic in and of itself. However this agenda needs to be both explicit and presented as an alternative approach, not the only approach. If critical thinking and the ability to disagree is repressed, the movement would certainly be standing on questionable moral ground.

As a response, these movements can attempt to interpret the nature of education in another way entirely, especially those movements that advance humanist values and endeavour to challenge the character of western capitalist society. They would argue that for 99% of a child’s life, they are ‘educated’ continuously by teachers, politicians, marketing and the media, popular culture etc, etc. This education is categorically value-based, and by nature does not lend itself to questioning. However, the relatively minimal exposure of chanichim to an alternative vision of society is swiftly condemned as indoctrination.

I’d like to sign-off with some practical advice from I.A. Snook: “To avoid indoctrinating, teachers must ensure that at some stage in a course of study pupils will hear competing points of view on disputed questions. Judgment, though, will still be required as to just which questions are really disputed, which points of view are worth considering, and when young pupils are ready to consider alternatives without becoming utterly confused.”

Between Right and Right - Amos Oz

Who are the good guys? That's what every well-meaning European, left-wing European, intellectual European, liberal European always wants to know, first and foremost. Who are the good guys in the film and who are the bad guys. In this respect Vietnam was easy: The Vietnamese people were the victims, and the Americans were the bad guys. The same with apartheid: You could easily see that apartheid was a crime and that the struggle for civil rights, for liberation and equality, and for human dignity was right. The struggle between colonialism and imperialism, on the one hand, and the victims of colonialism and imperialism, on the other, seems relatively simple--you can tell the good guys from the bad. When it comes to the foundations of the Israeli-Arab conflict, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, things are not so straightforward. And I am afraid I am not going to make things any easier for you by saying simply: These are the angels, these are the devils; you just have to support the angels, and good will prevail over evil. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Wild West movie. It is not a struggle between good and evil, rather it is a tragedy in the ancient and most precise sense of the word: a clash between right and right, a clash between one very powerful, deep, and convincing claim, and another very different but no less convincing, no less powerful, no less humane claim.

The Palestinians are in Palestine because Palestine is the homeland, and the only homeland, of the Palestinian people. In the same way in which Holland is the homeland of the Dutch, or Sweden the homeland of the Swedes. The Israeli Jews are in Israel because there is no other country in the world that the Jews, as a people, as a nation, could ever call home. As individuals, yes, but not as a people, not as a nation. The Palestinians have tried, unwillingly, to live in other Arab countries. They were rejected, sometimes even humiliated and persecuted by the so-called Arab family. They were made aware in the most painful way of their "Palestinianness"; they were not wanted by Lebanese or Syrians, by Egyptians or Iraqis. They had to learn the hard way that they are Palestinians, and that's the only country that they can hold on to. In a strange way the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have had a somewhat parallel historical experience. The Jews were kicked out of Europe; my parents were kicked out of Europe some seventy years ago. Just like the Palestinians were first kicked out of Palestine and then out of the Arab countries, or almost. When my father was a little boy in Poland, the streets of Europe were covered with graffiti, "Jews, go back to Palestine," or sometimes worse: "Dirty Yids, piss off to Palestine." When my father revisited Europe fifty years later, the walls were covered with new graffiti, "Jews, get out of Palestine."

People in Europe keep sending me wonderful invitations to spend a rosy weekend in a delightful resort with Palestinian partners, Palestinian colleagues, Palestinian counterparts, so that we can learn to know one another, to like one another, to drink a cup of coffee together, so that we realize that no one has horns and tails--and the trouble will go away. This is based on the widespread sentimental European idea that every conflict is essentially no more than a misunderstanding. A little group therapy, a touch of family counseling, and everyone will live happily ever after. Well, first, I have bad news for you: Some conflicts are very real; they are much worse than a mere misunderstanding. And then I have some sensational news for you: There is no essential misunderstanding between Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jew. The Palestinians want the land they call Palestine. They have very strong reasons to want it. The Israeli Jews want exactly the same land for exactly the same reasons, which provides for a perfect understanding between the parties, and for a terrible tragedy. Rivers of coffee drunk together cannot extinguish the tragedy of two peoples claiming, and I think rightly claiming, the same small country as their one and only national homeland in the whole world. So, drinking coffee together is wonderful and I'm all for it, especially if it is Arabic coffee, which is infinitely better than Israeli coffee. But drinking coffee cannot do away with the trouble

On Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement - James Horrox

The Zionism of the early kibbutz communards had never imagined a national revival taking the form of a state-building enterprise. For them, the Balfour Declaration in 1917, promising a "national home" for the Jews, meant an opportunity to establish a completely new form of society and a chance to put their dreams and visions into practice. Collective settlement was not seen simply as the most efficient way of colonizing the land in order to create a Jewish state and install a market-capitalist economy, as some have since argued. Though the later centrality of the movement to the creation and defense of Israel is clear, the notion that the pioneers resorted to collectivism simply in order to create suitable conditions for the institution of that state is largely a myth. Even the founders of Degania were strictly opposed to the notions of government and state, and by the time the Third Aliya groups arrived, the idea of building a stateless society on the back of the new social model they had created was one that was widely embraced. The idea held in common by many of the groups arriving in Palestine during the 1920s was to transform the Yishuv into a stateless commonwealth of autonomous communities that would include few, if any, non-collective alternatives.

Elephants are a Big Threat to Judaism - Samo

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 21^st 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 2^nd 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.