Statements I Support:

The unnoticed, every-day habits of obedience are what make possible the large decisions of obedience. You may not aspire to be obedient with your life on a grand scale if you are not obedient daily on a small scale.

Obedience is a way of life that makes one much more likely to succeed and far less concerned with success.

The way of obedience is fundamentally a creative way. The word itself suggests stifling submission and a preoccupation with rules, but the truth is just the opposite: to live obedient is to find each day an adventure, each season of life a ? adorned with !’s.

One finds their true volition within the way of obedience. In offering your volition to a superior volition, you find an entirely new volition, purer and stronger, true and instinctive, part yours, part God’s, an infallible compass that requires only periodic maintenance of cleansing tears.

To dream is stifling. To be obedient is to truly dream.

To be obedient is to laugh, like Abraham and Sarah laughed, at the wonderful absurdity of promises and fulfillments well beyond your capacity to affect.

To be obedient is to acknowledge a boundary to your own understanding, which rather than being a compromise is rather a great liberation. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the borders of obedience are the most freeing experience I have ever had, for the borders of obedience are the borders of the Promised Land of the Soul. And so as not to be ignorantly disaffected, one will remember that the biblical Promised Land has both deserts and gardens. Obedience is a crown, sometimes composed of thorns.

Obedience is less frequently an action and more frequently a posture of rigorous self-inspection. The daily and silent rigor of the posture of obedience is what gives one strength and surety on the day when obedience at last commands movement.

The way of obedience draws on the best aspects of the passive and active attitudes. Ultimately passive and responsive before the universal Impulse, we find ourselves in concert with the ultimate Music, as one who dances with a great dancer takes pleasure in being led, free of the worries of initiation. At the same time, the obedient woman and obedient man is an activist, because the one obeyed is an activist too. Jonah was disobedient and ran from the people. Jesus was obedient and ran towards the people. We are obedient not for isolation but for engagement, and any vows of abstention taken in the name of obedience are on a deeper and more real level vows that free us to action.

Obedience is a patient pleasure. In the same way that the pleasure of good literature is not found in a good quote here and a good quote there, but rather in the subtle beauty linking page to page and passage to passage, so the pleasure of obedience is not to be found in a heroic deed here or an enlightened moment there, but is to be found rather in a span of days strung out on the single thread of saying yes to God’s yes and also yes to God’s no.

One’s ability to obey is not dependent on their level of education, how sound is their exegesis, or who their father is. One’s ability to obey is dependent on one’s ability to pray. 

Distance from Thought Fortifies Thought

Numberless academics and intellectuals, devoting their lives entirely to letters and ideas, have lived. Their works, however, have fallen short of their aspirations - for universal words attractive and true to all. Why? They did not physically labor.

Tolstoy writes in My Religion, of high class people whose connection with nature and physical labor is severed: "These people, surrounded by artificial light instead of sunshine, look only upon fabrics of tapes and stone and wood fashioned by the hand of man; the roar of machinery, the roll of vehicles, the thunder of cannon, the sound of musical instruments, are always in their ears; they breathe an atmosphere heavy with distilled perfumes and tobacco smoke; because of the weakness of their stomachs and their depraved tastes they eat rich and highly spiced food. When they move about from place to place, they travel in closed carriages. When they go into the country, they have the same fabrics beneath their feet; the same draperies shut out the sunshine; and the same array of servants cut off all communication with the men, the earth, the vegetation, and the animals about them. Wherever they go, they are like so many captives shut out from the conditions of happiness. As prisoners sometimes console themselves with a blade of grass that forces its way through the pavement of their prison yard, or make pets of a spider or a mouse, so these people sometimes amuse themselves with sickly plants, a parrot, a poodle, or a monkey, to whose needs however they do not themselves administer."

Tolstoy goes on to expose the lie that a life of ease and idleness is what we desire, arguing rather that labor is a fundamental condition of human happiness, including physical labor. And what is interesting is the number of timeless voices whose way of life, up to and through their years of productive literary output, included regular manual labor.

Paul still made tents. Gandhi still wove. Moses was forty years a shepherd, and was travelling by foot through wilderness when the Torah was authored. One of the great Jewish sages, whose name I forget, was a vine dresser. Another was a physician. Spinoza's lenses.

I am suspicious that perhaps physical labor is a necessary fillip to take one's thoughts from the sphere of the wise to the sphere of the timeless. It must be meaningful labor, productive but simple, of the earth, full of calm sweat, uncluttered silence, of solidarity, ying and yang. Distance from thought fortifies thought.  

Gilad Shalit - Perspectives and Response

Perspectives

This morning many of my Jewish neighbors woke up and as their first act of the day prayed the short home liturgy ברכות השׁחר - Blessings of the Dawn. Near the beginning are the words:

ברוך אתה יי אלוהנו מלך העולם

מתיר אסורים

Blessed are you O Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe,

who sets prisoners free

This prayer had special meaning in Israel today. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli man about my age, was set free after 5.5 years in Hamas captivity. The price was 1000 Palestinian prisoners, who were also set free. I was glued to multiple screens all morning, scouring updates, articles, photographs, and video.  

Gilad Shalit is a brand in Israel. His face upstages Nike swoosh. The words גלעד עדיין חי ("Gilad still lives") are sprayed under overpasses and on dumpsters. His graffiti penetrates even respectable places, the familiar blue paint of his face defacing brick-walled school yards. He has a bumper sticker. He has a t-shirt. I should have bought stock. 

I saw his parents often, Noam and Aviva. They could be found every day in the protest tent they pitched outside the residence of the prime minister, not far from where I live. I never ventured off my bicycle to say hello, but felt solidarity with them.

When I was in Rome two summers ago, a 45-foot "Libero Gilad" banner was hanging from the Italian capital building, with a large picture of his face. Are you aware that he holds honorary citizenship in Rome, Paris, Miami, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh? 

Articles covering the Shalit deal fall into three categories, so far as I can tell:

1. A common response, after gratitude to the government and sympathy for the Shalit family, is reproach to the government. Is the government not aware of the historical mistake that large scale prisoner swaps have been?  Over 50% of released prisoners return to terror, and 175 of Israelis have already been murdered in the past by Palestinians that were released early from prison terms. Does the government not listen to the voice of its public, which sees today's agreement as being signed in tomorrow's Jewish blood? If you are looking for an example of this position, one writer is Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, who documents a compelling argument against today's happening.

2. Others see raw politics. Hamas and Israel are embarrassed at the moment, although for different reasons, at Mahmoud Abbas' bid for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. Capitalizing on a rare moment of common cause, Israel and Hamas signed a deal to distract the attention of the world away from New York. Plus, both Benyamin Netanyahu and Ismail Haniyeh (the prime minister of Hamas) could use a political victory at the moment, marginalized as they both are in international opinion. (I will refrain from ranting about the shameless way that Netanyahu tried to play himself off as the great hero of the moment today.)

Also in the West Bank today, in a political effort to make the deal appear more bi-partisan, Abbas and the PA held a large rally to welcome prisoners home. And Egypt, who brokered the deal and oversaw the prisoner exchange, also benefits. In playing the fair-minded referee they project an image of stability to a world that has for months watched Egypt teeter. 

3. The third genre of response could be called naive or hopeful, depending perhaps on which decade you were born in. A group of young Israel and Palestinians cooperating on Facebook posted on their wall: "We young leaders are rejoicing at the implementation of prisoner exchange - a celebration of the sanctity of life, a ray of hope for peaceful coexistence." Scores of people, the writer included, "liked" it. The group, whose name is Project YaLa: Young Adult Leaders Alliance, writes on their website: "The most serious problem among Israelis, Palestinians, and their diaspora communities is a severe lack of trust and understanding. We believe that demonizing the other side is NOT productive and that understanding is the only path toward tolerance and mutual respect." 

Not all the old are jaded either. Ban Ki-moon, the 67-year old United Nations Secretary General, said "With this release, it will have far-reaching positive impact to the stalled Middle East peace process." 

A fourth group of responses - common in the street I've noticed - can be summarized this way - "Only time will tell...I am happy for the Shalit family, of course, but also anxious about the increased security risk this will bring to Israel's streets and cafes and buses." 

Response

Fierce and long-lasting social debates have a common thread: every side is right. An Israeli woman I spoke with today said by way of apology, after an anti-Palestinian outburst, "You know, it's hard to say if the government should have made the Shalit deal. The heart said yes, the mind said no." And so round and round we go, debating, reading columns, writing columns, getting heated sometimes with friends, drinking cold reconciliation beers.   

You have to believe that the heart of the conflict in the Middle East is religious. Western intelligentsia may smile in wry agreement with Nietzsche's "God is dead, we've killed him, his blood is on our hands" line, but I live in a city - Jerusalem - under the domes of whose mosques and churches and synagogues a steady flow of worshipers is always to be found. God is not dead in Jerusalem. Religion is not bankrupt here.    

For some Jews, Muslims, and Christians, both now and for centuries past, foreign policy is expressible with a few simple theological syllogism: 

First,

If a) God has made an exclusive covenant with our people,

and b) another people also claims to have an exclusive covenant with God,

then c) someone is wrong.

How can we test the truth or falsity of a religion therefore? The results of it. 

If a) God has promised us blessing,

and b) we are blessed,

then c) we are right.

However, 

If a) God has promised us blessing,

and b) we are not blessed,

then c) we need to rethink some things, or repent.

However, and this is the problematic syllogism for covenant-minded theologians of Jerusalem's holy trinity of monotheism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: 

If a) God has promised us blessing,

and b) we are not blessed,

and c) someone else is blessed,

then d) our religion is wrong and the other people's religion is right. 

But this is intolerable.

Solution: wipe them out and take their blessing, in order to prove that our way is the truth. 

This is a broadly applicable statement, that it is intolerable for human beings to live without a sense of meaning in life. Religion for some provides that meaning. But if I am a religious person, and I live next to people of another religion whose blessing suggest to me daily that my own religion, and therefore the fundamental premises by which I rationalize and see beauty in my own existence, is a lie, this is intolerable. I must act to save my life. The neighbor must go, or his blessed situation must change. 

And never mind entirely that the Tanakh says "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19.18).

Never mind that the New Testament says "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5.44). 

Never mind that the Quran says "Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel evil with what is better" (Surah 41.34).

Theologians are brilliant inventors of complex words designed to convince me and you that these simple words do not really mean what these simple words clearly mean. Theology's place is squarely in the world, but pulpits of every shape cram the world into their theology.

Bounding the discussion to the trinity of monotheism, let it first be said that the "covenant" of each religion provides a universal vision:

Judaism - Abraham is called, and nations as many as the stars are to receive his inheritance of faith. Isaiah soars and soothes with words of infinite compassion. Psalm 98 - "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." There are many other passages. Unfortunately, this universal vision has been communicated to the world as being dependent on legalistic observance of archaic commandments, and has yet to materialize.

Islam - Although the Koran has a literary beauty of its own, one would not be off base to charge its 114 Surahs with redundancy. But if only a limited number of themes are expressed in its pages, one frequently emphasized is the universal dominion of Allah. There simply is nothing in existence outside the purview and purposes of the one of 99 names, and the worldview of the book is very strong and final on this point. Everything is destined for Islam, that is, submission to Allah. Unfortunately, this encompassing vision was to be won with the sword of Jihad and the oppressive Dhimmi clause of Sharia law, and has yet to materialize.

Christianity - Thinkers of the Church have long wrestled to align Christ with Paul, the Sermon and the Mount (by which I mean the collective body of Christ's teaching) with Romans. Perhaps Christ established the morality and Paul established the mechanism. Or Jesus showed the way and Paul showed the why. Whichever school of thought you are of, whichever theologians you read, most Christians would believe that Jesus came to rectify the world with a faith that hinges on God's grace and love for the individual, and the individual's grace and love for humankind. Unfortunately, this blazing universal message has a tendency to become cold and formalized by Christianity itself, and to become aloof from the common man and woman for whom it was intended, and also has yet to materialize. 

I am a Christian, so the New Testament is my mine of diamonds. In what ways then do I understand its truth to be politically and socially applicable in the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in the immediate context of the bargain of Gilad Shalit for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners? For truth's criterion of universality requires it to transcend personal experience and demonstrate social relevance and efficacy.

What is truth in this situation, in every situation? I will make this short, because now I am tired, and anyways I believe that very true things are stated simply. 

LOVE WINS. 

Don't call me quixotic. I know there is a lot at stake. This answer is not my cop-out. I am not equivocating or avoiding an answer. The above two words are not intellectual laziness disguised as poetry. Nor are those two words an excuse for apathy or blind acceptance of the political and economic systems we have inherited, some of which deeply wrong people that are conveniently removed from us, or as it were, on the other side of a concrete wall. 

To love means to suffer. To love means to hope. To love means creative and rigorous solutions cooperatively conceived. To love means to prioritize long-term peace over short term safety, to believe that after crucifixion indeed comes resurrection. To love does not mean to live within a narrow and exclusive covenant. Love does not own any God. God owns love. Christianity even employs the predicate: God is love (1 John 4.8). 

The way of love in Israel and Palestine will entail more pain and suffering, and calls for patience.

This will be the generation when love will win, because love can no longer afford to lose.

God bless you Mr. Shalit. God bless you 1000 Palestinians.

The Place of Attack

We live inside systems of which we are unaware. Certain boundaries of discussion, of acceptable thinking, are assumed to be just part of the way things are. Chomsky talks about this when he says (I'm loosely para-phrasing from memory) that those who are the object of political criticism really owe a debt to their detractors, because while some voices may be dissatisfied with this or that policy, on a much deeper level those same voices reaffirm the framework of discussion in the mind of the public. And this reaffirmation of framework legitimizes the existing power, or system of power. Marx, and other social radicals I suppose, also recognizes a difference between fundamental systemic restructuring and merely improving or realigning within the system that now exists.

As I reflected a couple weeks ago, the systems that we create, comprise and perpetuate are complex and interwoven abstract entities. The task of engaging on a fundamental level with "the system" therefore seems impractical, requiring one to be an expert in many fields. Marx, for instance (I've spent the day thumbing through his works, I admit), was learned about a number of fields, and it was from this polymath platform that he was able to construct a cohesive and compelling critique of capitalism and social vision of communism. To not expose yourself widely and immerse yourself deeply is to sentence yourself, it seems to me, to someone's charge of ignorance and irrelevance. But what the heck; everyone is someone's infidel, right?

This is not a pessimistic blog post. If my criterion for true engagement with the world were polymath and polyglot perfection, then why live? Gosh, just writing that sentence feels heavy. No, this post is hopeful...but also honest: recognizing and even celebrating the bounds of capacity for knowledge, I am leveling a self-exhortation to be perceptive (and courageous?) enough to identify the systemic outlines of accepted arguments, now and in the past, and then to make that the starting point of engagement, the place of attack.

Random PS....Bob Dylan does things with music I never knew were possible.

Question: How then shall we live?

This small question has become for me the cornerstone of prayer. When I am quietest and most still, this is the question that rises to the surface of my נפשׁ, time after time. Wrapped in it are many things, micro and macro, immediate and far away, mundane and sacred, hopeful and skeptical and honest. The question contains for me both a recognition and a plea: a recognition of the need for a stopping point, or at least a way point, in the stream of questions and perspectives and information that can flood the mind, and a plea for assistance to make sense of it all, in a way that is practical, tangible, constructive. 

I do not believe anyone would argue that the hermetic and insular worldviews that make us feel "elect" and "saved" have been compromised - mercifully - by the access to information we enjoy today. It becomes increasingly impossible to remain unexposed to compelling perspectives that at very deep levels challenge your own. This is a good thing. Very good. But dangerous. 

Starting points and philosophic assumptions are like a compass, leading to more or less foregone destinations. If, for example, you accept a priori the inspiration of a sacred text - recognizing even that "inspiration" is a concept fraught with umpteen facets - if you assume this as your starting point, you will probably land at certain end points. Exegetical debate is really a secondary discipline; the real battle ground of ideas is located where words are small and ideas are large: yes and no, death and life, man and woman, hope and nothingness, divine and human, plan and random, bound and unbounded, matter and soul. 

So I pray "How then shall we live?" or the imperative "Teach me how to live" because while I see in my bookshelf a swirling temple of beauty and truth, I also recognize that I will become the sacrifice myself if I turn to it for ultimate answers. There must be a way to live that is informed by, but not sourced by, knowledge. A way beyond knowledge. And this is what I am after. At stake is nothing short of everything: how to do relationship, how to choose and carry out profession, what of education, how to relate to material things and food, what lessons to draw from history, which influences are worth having, what imperatives are laid upon me by the coincidence of American birth, what it means to live radically, what it means to live in balance, and how to be patient, with self and others and world. 

It is for me a quivering question. And somehow just asking it, in the best stillness I am capable of, feels like the beginning of a satisfying answer, feels like harnessing its energy in the right direction. 

כמה שיחות...a couple conversations

(pop it into google translate if you need...but the translation there is pretty choppy...I'd prefer to think it's not due to my Hebrew)

שׂיחה עם יוסיף, משׁותף חדר שׁלי ־ 

אני ־ יוסיף, ישׁ לי שׁאלה....אתה גם נוצרי וגם ערבי. לכן, אתה מאמין גם בברית החדשׁה וגם בתנ״ך

הוא ־ כן

אני ־ אז, אני רוצה להבין...קשׁה לך להאמין בספר שׁל יהודים כשׁאין קשרים טובים בין הערבים ליהודים? תגיד לי

הוא ־ תשׁמע, ריאן, אני נוצרי, ועל כן אני הולך לפי ברית החדשׁה...אין שׂנאה. צריכים לאהוב גם וגם. אין שׁנאה

הבנים שׁל יוסיף הם כל הזמן בבתי כלא ישׂראלים, וישׁ לו באצמו בעיות עם משׁטרת ישׂראל על תעודותיו

          

Conversation at a house party with David (not his real name), a friend:

me: so you were in the army? 

d: sure.

me: where was your base? 

d: i was mostly in the west bank.

me: oh, in the settlements?

d: yeah

PAUSE

me: so, were you a combat soldier then?

d: yeah, i guess.

me: (tentatively) so, were you ever in action...i mean, with live firing? 

d: (nod) i was also in the second lebanon war.

PAUSE

me: (tentatively) did you see people die? 

d: (nod, head down. long pause.) you know, it's not the best conversation topic for friday night.

me: (embarrassed) you're right. i'm sorry.

d: i just try not to think about it too much. just trying to move on.

          

and a poem: 

when i run i make it rain.

when i run i remember

that philosophy should be done

while in motion,

that motion should be had

thoughtfully.

I saw an orthodox man
and his beard had crawled
all the way up
over his face.
He was blind.

I saw a secular broad
wringing with all her strength
every last jewel
from her breasts.
She was flat.