A Whole Heart |
Thursday, September 21, 2006 |
The Days of Awe approach. One of the prayers traditionally recited is that "All those created will become united in one bond to do God's Will with a whole (complete, perfect) heart - b'levav shalem." (This phrase gives the Academy for Jewish Religion its Hebrew name.)
Is this prayer calling for a peaceful pluralistic universe or is it calling for the wiping away of difference and plurality? The answer depends on who you ask. But the question points to a tension that never goes away. Is pluralism threatening or empowering? Is difference essential to the flourishing of diverse, but unique, identities, or does it threaten the preservation of distinctiveness? These questions are not only difficult in themselves. How one feels about them conditions how one sees the world, and thus, how one collects evidence to back up one's convictions, including one's convictions about pluralism.
Last week retired Brigadier General Effie Eitam, a right-wing member of Israel's Knesset (parliament) advocated the transfer of the Arabs out of the Occupied Territories . This is supposed to help insure Israel's security. It is not clear to me how Israel's security, which depends on Israel's peaceful coexistence with its Arab neighbors, can possibly benefit from such a move. It seems much more understandable that Eitam is simply expressing a visceral fear of and antagonism to people he sees as his intractable enemies. But since such a move can only exacerbate animosity between the groups, the benefit of such a move must be imagined to derive from a different result - its "cleaning out" of Israel, the Holy Land, of elements whose presence pollutes it. Eitam makes no bones of his desire to see Arab Israeli citizens also pack up and leave, since he sees them as a dangerous fifth column.
Here is an example of how one's ideology - one's comfort with pluralism, in particular - can color one's view of reality. While there is no question that Israel suffers from many vicious foes among the Arabs, it is also a remarkable fact that there is one extraordinary example of peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Arabs, an example that has been going on for over fifty years. I refer to the coexistence of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs in Israel itself. This coexistence has held firm through many wars and despite the unjust treatment suffered by Israeli Arabs at the hand of Israel's government. This record of peaceful coexistence is an unarguable fact that could serve as a building block for the expansion of such coexistence throughout the region. But for this to happen it must be acknowledged. What would lead a person to see one's peaceful neighbors as a dangerous fifth column? We should be sensitive to this phenomenon. Remember what Pharoah said about the Israelites who lived in Egypt in peaceful neighborliness? His hatred and dread of the Israelites was a reading of reality based on an unwillingness to embrace a complex vision of a society with pluralistic possibilites.
Eitam is apparently unable embrace this vision. What has further emerged in the aftermath of his remarks is the struggle within the Orthodox community (to which Eitam belongs) regarding how to react to his adoption of a position that is blatantly fascist. Is this position defensible Jewishly? How much room is there in the "big tent" of Orthodoxy for such a view? Is the reluctance of many Orthodox groups and leaders to vehemently condemn such remarks a sign that, deep down, they actually share those views, as a simplified vision of an unencumbered Israel, or is it a symptom of a desire to be pluralistic even when that means tolerating obnoxious ideas?
An honest struggle with these questions may entail a bitter effort. But, in the end, we strive and hope for a Shanah Tovah U'm'tuqah - a Good, Sweet Year.
Is this prayer calling for a peaceful pluralistic universe or is it calling for the wiping away of difference and plurality? The answer depends on who you ask. But the question points to a tension that never goes away. Is pluralism threatening or empowering? Is difference essential to the flourishing of diverse, but unique, identities, or does it threaten the preservation of distinctiveness? These questions are not only difficult in themselves. How one feels about them conditions how one sees the world, and thus, how one collects evidence to back up one's convictions, including one's convictions about pluralism.
Last week retired Brigadier General Effie Eitam, a right-wing member of Israel's Knesset (parliament) advocated the transfer of the Arabs out of the Occupied Territories . This is supposed to help insure Israel's security. It is not clear to me how Israel's security, which depends on Israel's peaceful coexistence with its Arab neighbors, can possibly benefit from such a move. It seems much more understandable that Eitam is simply expressing a visceral fear of and antagonism to people he sees as his intractable enemies. But since such a move can only exacerbate animosity between the groups, the benefit of such a move must be imagined to derive from a different result - its "cleaning out" of Israel, the Holy Land, of elements whose presence pollutes it. Eitam makes no bones of his desire to see Arab Israeli citizens also pack up and leave, since he sees them as a dangerous fifth column.
Here is an example of how one's ideology - one's comfort with pluralism, in particular - can color one's view of reality. While there is no question that Israel suffers from many vicious foes among the Arabs, it is also a remarkable fact that there is one extraordinary example of peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Arabs, an example that has been going on for over fifty years. I refer to the coexistence of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs in Israel itself. This coexistence has held firm through many wars and despite the unjust treatment suffered by Israeli Arabs at the hand of Israel's government. This record of peaceful coexistence is an unarguable fact that could serve as a building block for the expansion of such coexistence throughout the region. But for this to happen it must be acknowledged. What would lead a person to see one's peaceful neighbors as a dangerous fifth column? We should be sensitive to this phenomenon. Remember what Pharoah said about the Israelites who lived in Egypt in peaceful neighborliness? His hatred and dread of the Israelites was a reading of reality based on an unwillingness to embrace a complex vision of a society with pluralistic possibilites.
Eitam is apparently unable embrace this vision. What has further emerged in the aftermath of his remarks is the struggle within the Orthodox community (to which Eitam belongs) regarding how to react to his adoption of a position that is blatantly fascist. Is this position defensible Jewishly? How much room is there in the "big tent" of Orthodoxy for such a view? Is the reluctance of many Orthodox groups and leaders to vehemently condemn such remarks a sign that, deep down, they actually share those views, as a simplified vision of an unencumbered Israel, or is it a symptom of a desire to be pluralistic even when that means tolerating obnoxious ideas?
An honest struggle with these questions may entail a bitter effort. But, in the end, we strive and hope for a Shanah Tovah U'm'tuqah - a Good, Sweet Year.
posted by Helene
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