the second cup — the cup of redemption — כוס גאולה

[Originally published in 2012.03.30 as: “#blogexodus : (the cup of) redemption”]

Think of each cup of wine as a toast to the gen­er­a­tions of our peo­ple who com­mit­ted them­selves to the strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion in their own day.

With the sec­ond cup of wine, we recall the sec­ond promise, the sec­ond stage of our redemp­tion, the actu­al res­cue from slavery:

וְהִצַּלְתִּי אֶתְכֶם מֵעֲבֹדָתָם

I will deliv­er you from their bondage. [Ex. 6:6]

Raise the sec­ond cup of wine and sing:

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ, שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבַד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל–דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם

V’he she’amdah la’avoteinu v’lanu. She­lo echad bil­vad amad aleinu l’chaloteinu. Ehlah, she’b’chol dor vador omdim aleinu l’chaloteinu. V’haKadosh Baruch Hu matzileinu miyadam.

This force that rose up against our ances­tors was not the only one that rose up to destroy us. In each and every gen­er­a­tion, there are those who rise up to destroy us. And Right­eous Gen­tiles stand beside us, help­ing us defend our­selves. They are appre­ci­at­ed exten­sions of the Holy One, who is to be blessed, as togeth­er we work for a bet­ter world.

Set down the cup of wine.

But, before we drink…

Why us? Why the Jew­ish peo­ple? Our num­bers amount to lit­tle more than a sta­tis­ti­cal error in the cen­sus of Chi­na. Why do we play such an active role in our world? Per­haps we can find an answer in the ques­tions we ask and the sto­ries we tell tonight.

The lead­ers of Baby­lon­ian Jew­ry in the eleventh cen­tu­ry added this, one of the old­est sto­ries about the Seder to the Haggadah:

מַעֲשֶׂה בְּרַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר וְרַבִּי יְהוֹשׁוּעַ וְרַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה וְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָה וְרַבִּי טַרְפוֹן, שֶׁהָיוּ מְסֻבִּין בִּבְנֵי בְרָק; וְהָיוּ מְסַפְּרִין בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם כָּל אוֹתוֹ הַלַּיְלָה, עַד שֶׁבָּאוּ תַּלְמִידֵיהֶם וְאָמְרוּ לָהֶם, רַבּוֹתֵינוּ, הִגִּיעַ זְמָן קִרְיַת שְׁמַע שֶׁלְּ שַׁחְרִית

Dur­ing the Roman oppres­sion, five rabbis—Akiva, Tar­fon, Yehoshu’a, Elazar ben Azaria, and Eliezer—held a Seder in the town of B’nai B’rak. They delved deeply into the Hag­gadah until dawn broke. Then, their stu­dents came and said, “Rabbeinu, it is time for dawn devotions.”

We don’t know why Baby­lon­ian lead­ers added this sto­ry. Accord­ing to tra­di­tion, it was not our sal­va­tion from Egypt­ian slav­ery that these rab­bis dis­cussed but the strug­gle against Roman oppres­sion of their time.

How­ev­er, these five sages rep­re­sent three sep­a­rate gen­er­a­tions, and their stu­dents call­ing them to morn­ing prayers rep­re­sent a fourth. It is high­ly unlike­ly that they were all able to be at the same seder.

Rather, the sages’ all-night study mod­els at least two impor­tant aspects of the Pesach seder. It is cen­tered not on chil­dren but on adults: this sto­ry bal­ances the Four Chil­dren and the Four Ques­tions. You should ask at least four ques­tions, then dis­cuss till the break of dawn to cel­e­brate our redemp­tion. In addi­tion, it stress­es the abil­i­ty to have con­ver­sa­tions across time, where texts and actors from one gen­er­a­tion of Jew­ish life are present to com­ment and clar­i­fy events and texts of anoth­er peri­od. [taught by Rab­bi Cliff Librach ז,ל]

In addi­tion, per­haps our Baby­lon­ian sages added this sto­ry dur­ing appar­ent­ly peace­ful times to remind us that in every gen­er­a­tion, peo­ple strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion, redemp­tion, sal­va­tion, renew­al, free­dom, lib­er­ty, and right.

Who are the people struggling for freedom in our time?

We need to count our­selves among them.

What have I done this past year to increase freedom?

In their hon­or, and in hon­or of all the peo­ple of the world who have joined in the strug­gle for peace, for free­dom, and to make the world a bet­ter place in which to live, we drink the sec­ond cup of wine.


what is “#blogexodus”?

My friend and col­league Phyl­lis Som­mers has thought of yet a new cre­ative way to pre­pare for Peasach. You can learn more here.

#blogexodus schedule
blog­ging the exodus
Posted in from the archives, holidays, judaica, politics, ritual, what | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

for multiple transgressions of…

…it’s time to boost this up to the top

The words of Amos, who was among the writ­ers of Tel Aviv, which he saw, con­cern­ing Israel in the days of Cas­tro, Sartre, Rus­sell and all the rest…

The fol­low­ing text appeared in the Octo­ber 1968 edi­tion of Mid­stream mag­a­zine. It was dis­trib­uted very wide­ly as a long leaflet in the late 1960s. Jay tracked down a copy for me. Con­sid­er­ing that it’s over forty years old and there are no copies of it on the web, and the author is now dead (August 4, 2009 יד אב תשסט), and that it’s still a very good piece I have tak­en the lib­er­ty of offer­ing it here (with links to help make clear some of the ref­er­ences as well as sub­head­ings to break up the con­tin­u­ous text.

Jay and I were among the many young Jews who were touched by what Kenan had to say. We dis­trib­uted the arti­cle as wide­ly as pos­si­ble in the late ’60s. Among oth­ers who were so touched and have now writ­ten appre­ci­a­tions of Kenan are J. J. Gold­berg in the For­ward and David Twer­sky at the JTA.

With very few updat­ed ref­er­ences, this Let­ter is, sad­ly, as time­ly now as it was then… and wor­thy of being read by a new generation.

A Letter to all Good People

To Fidel Castro, Sartre, Russell and All the Rest

By AMOS KENAN ז“ל

I am for Cuba. I love Cuba. I am opposed to the geno­cide per­pe­trat­ed by the Amer­i­cans in Viet­nam. I want the Amer­i­cans to get out of Viet­nam immediately.

But I am an Israeli, there­fore I am for­bid­den to take all these stands. Cuba does not want me to love her. Some­one has decid­ed that I am per­mit­ted to love only the Amer­i­cans. I don’t mind so much that some­one, espe­cial­ly the good peo­ple every­where, have decid­ed to out­law me. I shall be able to get along with­out their help. But I do mind that I am not per­mit­ted any longer to love and hate accord­ing to my feel­ings, and accord­ing to my polit­i­cal and moral incli­na­tions, and that I am refused invi­ta­tion or even admit­tance to par­ties held by the good peo­ple. I am not per­mit­ted any longer to toast jus­tice with a glass of cham­pagne. I am not per­mit­ted to eat caviar and denounce the Amer­i­cans. I am not per­mit­ted to stroll in the sun-drenched streets of Havana, arm-in-arm with my erst­while good friends from St. Ger­main, Via Vene­to and Chelsea, and cel­e­brate the mem­o­ry of Che Gue­vara, cast­ing a threat­en­ing look at impe­ri­al­ism. I am also final­ly and absolute­ly for­bid­den to sign peti­tions of all sorts for human rights and for the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers from the jails of reac­tionary regimes. I am not “In,” I am “Out.” For me the par­ty is over. Period.

This sit­u­a­tion dri­ves me slight­ly out of my mind. There­fore I wish to relate a few con­fused, dis­con­nect­ed sto­ries. Per­haps some good man will find the con­nec­tion. Here we go.

hasten to the aid of distressed vessels; or not

One day an Israeli sub­ma­rine sank in the Mediter­ranean with its six­ty-nine crew mem­bers. Its SOS was answered, among oth­ers, by the British, Turk­ish and Greek fleets. The Russ­ian navy, which was cruis­ing very close to the loca­tion, did not join in the search. Moscow Radio’s Arab broad­casts, took the trou­ble to denounce the coun­tries whose ships rushed to help the lost submarine.

It is a sacred prin­ci­ple of sea­men of all nations to has­ten to the aid of dis­tressed ves­sels. In civ­i­lized coun­tries, like Eng­land, it is cus­tom­ary to aid even an ene­my, even in wartime. The explic­it rule bind­ing on any cap­tain is to risk his life and his ves­sel in order to save the vic­tims. It is well worth not­ing that even com­man­ders of Ger­man U‑boats dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, except mem­bers of the SS, used to sur­face after sink­ing an Allied ship, sup­ply the sur­vivors with water, food and maps, and give them the cor­rect course to a safe haven. But the glo­ri­ous days of Nazi human­ism are appar­ent­ly over. The Israeli sub­ma­rine was not on a war mis­sion, and Israel is not in a state of war with the Sovi­et Union. Nev­er­the­less, Moscow Radio is of the opin­ion that any­one rush­ing to my aid in my dis­tress does not help humanity.

I am not so naive as to believe that this is anti-Semi­tism, Sovi­et style. I have nev­er believed that the Sovi­ets are guid­ed in their cal­cu­la­tions by such pow­er­ful and sin­cere emo­tions as anti-Semi­tism, which is com­mon to both the pro­gres­sive and the reac­tionary camps. I know that the Rus­sians con­duct a cool, con­sid­ered, prag­mat­ic pol­i­cy and are guid­ed by clear polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. This was a polit­i­cal move, car­ried out as a part of a polit­i­cal game.

The mean­ing of this move can only be: Israel must be iso­lat­ed from the civ­i­lized human com­mu­ni­ty. The rules that apply to the civ­i­lized com­mu­ni­ty, rules of hon­or, con­sid­er­a­tion and mutu­al aid, do not apply to me.

the shedding of my blood is no crime

I am out. There is only one more step to the con­clu­sion: the shed­ding of my blood is no crime.

And now the con­clu­sion: A dev­as­tat­ing attack on me. Dev­as­tat­ing, but nec­es­sary and just. It is per­mis­si­ble to destroy a per­son whom it is not oblig­a­tory to save. It is a duty to destroy a per­son whom it is oblig­a­tory not to save.

For­give my bru­tal way of putting things. I can­not con­ceive of it oth­er­wise. If this was a move in a game, the game must have an object. The object is the pen­e­tra­tion of the Mid­dle East, and let us assume, for the sake of argu­ment, that this is for the pur­pose of advanc­ing world rev­o­lu­tion and the over­throw of impe­ri­al­ism. The Mid­dle East con­tains one-hun­dred-mil­lion Arabs and two-and-a-half mil­lion Israelis. There is no need for an elec­tron­ic com­put­er to prove which is the eas­i­er way out. But it is not so easy, in our enlight­ened world, to wipe out two-and-a-half mil­lion peo­ple. A rea­son and a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion are need­ed. You can­not wipe out just like that. First of all, you must out­law. In an excel­lent Czech film we have seen how the towns­peo­ple did not object to the con­fis­ca­tion of Jew­ish prop­er­ty. Those who did not oppose the con­fis­ca­tion did not oppose the depor­ta­tion, and after the deportation …

There­fore, as long as there is one good Israeli, you can­not destroy Israel. There­fore there must not be a sin­gle just Israeli in Sodom. There­fore you must not invite an Israeli Com­mu­nist Par­ty to a con­ven­tion of Com­mu­nist par­ties. There­fore you must not invite a left­ist Israeli author to a con­fer­ence of left­ist authors in Havana.

There are no more class dis­tinc­tions. There are only nation­al dis­tinc­tions. Even an Israeli left­ist is an impe­ri­al­ist. And an oil sheikh is a social­ist. The way is open.

it is permissible to compare me to the Nazis

There­fore it is per­mis­si­ble to com­pare me to the Nazis. It is per­mis­si­ble to call me a gauleit­er. It is per­mis­si­ble to mobi­lize all of the world’s con­sci­en­tious peo­ple against me – with­out them you can­not do it – and all this because there is an object loom­ing beyond the hori­zon, an object for the sake of which this tac­tic is jus­ti­fi­able and useful.

I beg your par­don. I want to tell you some­thing about myself, before I con­tin­ue with my con­fused stories.

Until quite recent­ly I also belonged to the good peo­ple. Mean­ing that not only did I sit in cafés and sign peti­tions for the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in coun­tries not my own. Not only did I join procla­ma­tions, after sip­ping my aper­i­tif, for the release of the down­trod­den from the yoke of impe­ri­al­ism in places I shall nev­er reach; I also did some­thing against what seemed to me to be oppres­sion and injus­tice in my own country.

After hav­ing fought as a mem­ber of the Stern Group for the lib­er­a­tion of my coun­try and the whole Mid­dle East from impe­ri­al­ism, I did not turn auto­mat­i­cal­ly from being an oppressed per­son into an oppres­sor, as hap­pens, unfor­tu­nate­ly, to many peo­ple in many places.

I am used to being called a traitor by local patriots

Dur­ing the twen­ty years of the exis­tence of the State of Israel, I helped with my pen in my reg­u­lar news­pa­per col­umn, by fight­ing against the injus­tices com­mit­ted against the Arab minor­i­ty. And not by the pen only, but also in demon­stra­tions, and also when arraigned before a mil­i­tary tri­bunal. I am used to being called a trai­tor by local patri­ots – which is a uni­ver­sal phe­nom­e­non. I shall have to get used to being called a trai­tor by my pro­gres­sive friends, too.

Peo­ple close to me here once estab­lished a Com­mit­tee for a Free Alge­ria. When the Alger­ian MIG’s do appear in Israel’s skies – I say this par­en­thet­i­cal­ly – poet­ic jus­tice demands that they should first bomb the homes of the mem­bers of this Com­mit­tee. Now you can close the paren­the­ses, with us included.

Dur­ing the Six Day War, in June 1967, the bat­tal­ion I served in was ordered to super­vise the demo­li­tion of four Arab vil­lages: I con­sid­ered it my duty to desert from my unit, to write a report of this action, and to send the copies to the Gen­er­al Staff of the Army, to mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment and to Knes­set mem­bers. This report has been trans­lat­ed and cir­cu­lat­ed in the world as a proof of Israel’s crimes.

But per­mit me to con­clude the sto­ry. The action I under­took was in fla­grant vio­la­tion of any mil­i­tary law. Accord­ing to mil­i­tary reg­u­la­tions I should have been court-mar­tialed. I have no idea what would have been the sen­tence of a Red Army sol­dier were he to vio­late nation­al and mil­i­tary dis­ci­pline in such a man­ner, and I refuse to guess what would have hap­pened to him even in my worst dreams.

After return­ing to my unit, I was ordered to present myself – I, a pri­vate in rank – before the Gen­er­al com­mand­ing all the divi­sions on that front. He told me that he had read my report and con­sid­ered it his duty to inform me that what had occurred was a regret­table error which will not recur.

I disbelieved his statement that this was only a mistake

Deep in my heart I dis­be­lieved his state­ment that this was only a mis­take. I was con­vinced that who­ev­er ordered such an action did not expect such resis­tance from with­in – the men of my bat­tal­ion refused to car­ry out the order – and was alarmed at the impres­sion such an action might cre­ate abroad. But I was glad that he found it nec­es­sary to announce that this was only an error. I asked him how he intends to ensure that the ‘error’ will nev­er recur. On the spot he signed an order per­mit­ting me free move­ment in all occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries so that I could see with my own eyes that such an action had not recurred.

But since then, in all the peace-papers in the world, my report about the destruc­tion of vil­lages has been reprint­ed over and over again, as if it hap­pened only yes­ter­day, as if it hap­pened again and again, as if it is hap­pen­ing all the time. And this is a lie. It is like writ­ing that witch­es have been burnt at the stake in Eng­land – omit­ting the date.

I here­by request all those who believed me when I report­ed a crim­i­nal act, to believe me now too. And those who do not believe me now, I here­by request to dis­be­lieve my for­mer report too, and not to believe me selec­tive­ly, accord­ing to their con­ve­nience. I should also add that the town of Kalk­iliya, which began to be demol­ished dur­ing the writ­ing of my report, is now in the process of being rebuilt, after the expelled inhab­i­tants have been brought back. I know that any­one protest­ing injus­tice is some­what dis­ap­point­ed if his protest helps to rec­ti­fy the injus­tice. But what can I do if it did happen?

the less you fight me, the more you would help me fight [injustices]

This does not mean that oth­er injus­tices are not per­pe­trat­ed now. The less you fight me, the more you would help me fight them.

If the Allies had defeat­ed Ger­many in 1940, there would have been no Auschwitz death camps. And today, were any­one to claim that the Ger­mans intend­ed to mur­der six mil­lion Jews, peo­ple would have said: This is mere­ly pro­pa­gan­da. They only talked that way. They did­n’t mean it. What can we do if the threats to destroy Israel, voiced before the Six-Day War, bore no fruit?

When the Rus­sians announced con­cen­tra­tions of Israeli troops on the Syr­i­an bor­der, Prime Min­is­ter Eshkol invit­ed Sovi­et Ambas­sador Chubakhin to accom­pa­ny him on a trip to the bor­der and to see for him­self that this was not true. The Sovi­et ambas­sador declined the invi­ta­tion. What naiveté on Eshkol’s part! If the Sovi­ets decid­ed, in order to advance their polit­i­cal aims, that they need Israel troop con­cen­tra­tions, what is the use of truth? Who said that the Rus­sians are not ready to fight to the last Egypt­ian, to the last Vietcong?

On the very day that the Sovi­et ambas­sador decid­ed that he had no inter­est in the truth, on the very day that the Rus­sians denounced Israel in spite of the open threats of destruc­tion issu­ing from the rulers of Egypt, Com­mu­nist Rus­sia joined a con­spir­a­cy of genocide.

No greater dis­as­ter could befall a man of the left. Even the most left­ist of men will not con­sent to be slaugh­tered when a sword is point­ed at his throat. Even when the sword is a pro­gres­sive one, it does not make it any the pleas­an­ter. The trou­ble is that not a sin­gle seri­ous per­son in the world believes today that Israel was real­ly in dan­ger of being anni­hi­lat­ed. This is the opti­cal illu­sion of 1968.

does anybody in the world have any memory

Does any­body in the world have any mem­o­ry at all? Who does real­ly remem­ber what hap­pened yesterday?

The gigan­tic Goliath is threat­en­ing lit­tle David. The fact that Goliath is a giant, and that David is small, is only an opti­cal illu­sion. If Goliath tri­umphs and tram­ples David under his feet, it is a sign that he real­ly is a giant. But if lit­tle David beats the giant, peo­ple say: the giant David has tram­pled poor lit­tle Goliath in the dust.

I claim that Israel played the role of David. And I claim that even now, after the stun­ning vic­to­ry, she still is lit­tle David who has indeed beat­en the stunned Goliath, but Goliath still is a men­ac­ing giant. Today, no less than in June 1967, Israel is in dan­ger of anni­hi­la­tion. Unless the enlight­ened world mobi­lizes now, imme­di­ate­ly, per­haps it will be too late. But I am afraid that there are not many peo­ple in the world today who will be sor­ry if vic­to­ri­ous David is destroyed.

Many more peo­ple would have been ready to mourn the anni­hi­lat­ed, beat­en David. And here again it is only a mat­ter of a moral opti­cal illusion.

A bit­ter sus­pi­cion ris­es in me that even the most enlight­ened among the pro­gres­sive peo­ple still adhere to the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion that they imbibed in their moth­ers’ milk: Jew, stay on the cross. Nev­er get off it. The day you get off the cross and hurl it at the heads of your cru­ci­fiers, we shall cease to love you.

An accursed peo­ple, the cru­ci­fied Mes­sian­ic peo­ple of the cru­ci­fiers of the cru­ci­fied Messiah.

a quiet, peace-loving, socialist country like Egypt…

The pic­ture which emerges today is more or less as fol­lows: A qui­et, peace-lov­ing, social­ist coun­try like Egypt, a coun­try try­ing, by means of an Ara­bic or Islam­ic social­ism, to trans­form itself rapid­ly from reli­gious feu­dal­ism into an indus­tri­al soci­ety, has been beset by a mil­i­taris­tic, cun­ning, expan­sion­ist state, which had hus­band­ed its might for years for the crush­ing and dev­as­tat­ing attack, and thanks to its tech­no­log­i­cal might has tram­pled a back­ward, help­less ene­my underfoot.

Who will believe us today, that what guid­ed us in the awful days of May 1967 was the oath to the six mil­lion? Who will believe that we tri­umphed because we had no oth­er alternative?

We have no army, no might, noth­ing. We have a nar­row coastal strip, unpro­tect­ed civil­ian cities. But on that bit­ter day when we felt that every­thing had closed around us, we knew that what had hap­pened once, what had always hap­pened, must nev­er hap­pen again. We decid­ed to resist. We decid­ed to fight in the hous­es, in the stair­wells, from street to street and from house to house. No flat in Tel-Aviv could have been con­quered with­out killing all men, women and chil­dren in it. No white flag would have been raised on a sin­gle build­ing in Tel Aviv. The con­quest of Israel would have been a very expen­sive business.

Today the Arabs boast of wag­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary guer­ril­la war­fare. They claim to have copied the Viet­cong method of war­fare and are apply­ing it in the Mid­dle East. They march with Che Gue­vara’s picture.

This makes me laugh.

Just as Che Gue­vara’s pic­ture made me laugh hang­ing in the lux­u­ri­ous salons of Montparnasse.

I have always won­dered whether Che Gue­vara had a pic­ture of Che Gue­vara hang­ing in his salon.

What is the Viet­cong? The Viet­cong is not white flags on build­ings. The Viet­cong means fight­ing to the last man. The Viet­cong of the Mid­dle East, whether those who demon­strate with Che Gue­vara’s pic­ture like it or not, are we. We are pre­pared, at any moment, to wage the bat­tle to the death.

having been morally assassinated

After hav­ing been moral­ly assas­si­nat­ed, we are pre­pared to fight for our bare ter­res­tri­al lives, even with­out the sym­pa­thy and the bless­ing of the world’s pro­gres­sive camp. After the death camps, we are left with only one supreme val­ue: existence.

Some­thing about the use of the word “we”; I am not proud of this usage. Once, when I used to say “we,” I mean we, all those who love Che, who hate France. Those who love Nâzım Hik­met and hate oppres­sion. Once I believed that the real ene­my always dwells at home, and that the only true war is a civ­il war. Gone are the days. Today, if you are ready for me to die because of Dayan, and Dayan is not ready to die with me but to fight, whom should I choose?

Our exis­tence, today, is incon­ve­nient for those who work at the glob­al bal­ance of pow­er. It is more con­ve­nient that there should be two camps, one white, the oth­er black. We num­ber, as I said before, only two-and-a-half mil­lion peo­ple. On the glob­al map, what is the val­ue of a few hun­dred-thou­sand left­ists oppos­ing the Eshkol gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and striv­ing for a gen­uine peace with the Arabs, who strive to lib­er­ate them­selves from the one-way depen­dence on Amer­i­can power?

Some­body has already decid­ed to sac­ri­fice us. The his­to­ry of rev­o­lu­tion is full of such sac­ri­fices since the days of the Span­ish Civ­il War. Once world rev­o­lu­tion was sac­ri­ficed on the altar of the “rev­o­lu­tion in one coun­try.” Today the cal­cu­la­tion is some­what subtler.

Today they try to explain to us that there is an Arab social­ism. There is an Egypt­ian social­ism, and an Alger­ian social­ism. There is a social­ism of slave-traders, and a social­ism of oil mag­nates. There are all kinds of social­ism, all aim­ing real­ly at one and the same thing — the over­throw of impe­ri­al­ism, which hap­pens to be one and indivisible.

there was only a single kind of socialism

Once there was only a sin­gle kind of social­ism, which fed on prin­ci­ples, some of them moral. On the day that moral­i­ty died there was born the par­tic­u­lar, con­ven­tion­al social­ism, chang­ing from place to place and from time to time, for which I have no oth­er name but Nation­al Social­ism.

I want to live. What can I do if Rus­sia, Chi­na, Viet­nam, India, Yugoslavia, Sartre, Rus­sell, Cas­tro, have all decid­ed that I am made all of a piece? It is incon­ve­nient for them to admit that there is an oppo­si­tion in Israel too. Why should there be an oppo­si­tion in Israel if in the Pop­u­lar Democ­ra­cies, in Cuba or Alge­ria, there is only one party?

And per­haps they do have pangs of con­science. But they have made their cal­cu­la­tion and found out that I am only one, only ten, only one-hun­dred-thou­sand, and on the oth­er side there are tens of mil­lions, all led like a sin­gle man, in a sin­gle par­ty, towards the light, towards the sun. And if so, who am I?

I will tell you who I am: I am the man who will con­fuse and con­found your pro­gres­sive cal­cu­la­tions. I have too much love with this vain world, a world of caviar, tele­vi­sion, sun­ny beach­es, sex and good wine. You go ahead and toast the rev­o­lu­tion with cham­pagne. I shall toast myself, my own life, bot­tle in one hand, rifle in the other.

Beware. God is not with you.

You send Sovi­et arms to Egypt. You iso­late me. And in order to make it eas­i­er to iso­late me, you change my name. My flesh, which you eat, you call fish. You don’t want to pro­tect me – nei­ther against the Arabs, nor against the Rus­sians, nor against Dayan or John­son. More­over, when I try to call on you and tell you that I am against Dayan, against Eshkol, against Ben-Guri­on, and ask for your help, you laugh at me and demand that I should return to the June 4 bor­ders uncon­di­tion­al­ly. Hold it! I refuse to play this game. If you give me back the pis­tol with which I tried to kill you, I won’t kill you. Because I am a nice fel­low. But if you don’t give it back to me, I shall kill you, because you are a bad fellow.

why weren’t the June 4 borders peace borders on the fourth of June?

Why weren’t the June 4 bor­ders peace bor­ders on the fourth of June, but will only become so now? Why weren’t the UN Par­ti­tion Plan bor­ders of 1947 peace bor­ders then, but will become so now? Why should I return his gun to the ban­dit as a reward for hav­ing failed to kill me?

I want peace peace peace peace, peace peace peace.

I am ready to give every­thing back in exchange for peace. And I shall give noth­ing back with­out peace.

I am ready to solve the refugee prob­lem. I am ready to accept an inde­pen­dent Pales­tin­ian state. I am ready to sit and talk. About every­thing, all at the same time. Direct talks, indi­rect talks, all this is imma­te­r­i­al. But peace.

Until you agree to have peace, I shall give back noth­ing. And if you force me to become a con­queror, I shall become a con­queror. And if you force me to become an oppres­sor, I shall become an oppres­sor. And if you force me into the same camp with all the forces of dark­ness in the world, there I shall be.

There is no lack of rabid mil­i­tarists in Israel. Their num­ber is steadi­ly increas­ing, the more our iso­la­tion becomes appar­ent. Nass­er helps Dayan, Kosy­gin helps Eshkol. Fidel Cas­tro helps the Jew­ish chau­vin­ists. Who of the world’s giants cares how many more Jews, how many more Arabs, bleed to death in the Sinai sands?

there is no lack here of mad hysterical militarists

There is no lack here of mad hys­ter­i­cal mil­i­tarists. All those qui­et cit­i­zens who went out to war with KLM trav­el bags and in laun­dry trucks, who scrib­bled on their tanks: “We Want to Be Home”. All those who fought with­out anger, with­out hatred, only for their lives, are becom­ing mil­i­taris­tic, con­vinced that only Israeli pow­er, and noth­ing else in the world, will ever help us.

The only ones who are pre­pared to defend me, for rea­sons I don’t like at all, are the Amer­i­cans. It is con­ve­nient for them, for the time being. You are fling­ing me towards Amer­i­ca, the bas­tion of democ­ra­cy and the mur­der­er of Viet­nam, who tram­ples the down­trod­den peo­ples and spares my life, who oppress­es the Negroes and sup­plies me with arms to save myself. You leave me no oth­er alter­na­tive. You don’t even offer me humil­i­at­ing terms, to be admit­ted through the rear door into the pro­gres­sive orgy. You don’t even want me to over­throw my gov­ern­ment. You only want me to sur­ren­der, uncon­di­tion­al­ly, and to believe the spokes­men of the Rev­o­lu­tion that hence­forth no Jew­ish doc­tors will be mur­dered, and that they will lim­it them­selves to the dec­la­ra­tion that Zion­ism is respon­si­ble for the riots in Warsaw.

Very fun­ny. The truth is that I and Sartre, two peo­ple with the same vision, more or less, with the same ideals, more or less, and if I may be per­mit­ted the imper­ti­nence, with the same moral lev­el, more or less, are now on oppo­site sides of the barricade.

We have been pushed to both sides by the cold cal­cu­la­tions of the peo­ple who sent us or aban­doned us. But the fact remains – these are not Amer­i­cans shoot­ing Rus­sians, nor cap­i­tal­ists shoot­ing social­ists, or free­dom-fight­ers shoot­ing the oppressors.

neither do I know who shall be more lucky

It is I, shoot­ing Sartre. I see him in my gun sights; he sees me in his gun sights. I still don’t know which of us is faster, more skilled, or more deter­mined to kill or be killed. Nei­ther do I know who shall be more lucky – the one who has no oth­er alter­na­tive, or the one who acts out of choice.

One thing is clear to me: if I sur­vive, I shall mourn Sartre’s death more than he would mourn mine.

And if that hap­pens, I shall nev­er be con­soled until I wipe from under the heav­ens both the cap­i­tal­ists and the com­mu­nists. Or they me. Or each the oth­er. Or all destroy all.

And if I sur­vive even that, with­out a god but with­out prophets either, my life will have no sense what­so­ev­er. I shall have noth­ing else to do but walk on the banks of streams, or on the top of the rocks, watch the won­ders of nature, and con­sole myself with the words of Eccle­si­astes, the wis­est of men: For the light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.

AMOS KENAN, one of Israel’s out­stand­ing jour­nal­ists, express­es here the pro­found sen­ti­ments of much of Israel’s pro­gres­sive com­mu­ni­ty and calls for the under­stand­ing and par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Left through­out the world in achiev­ing peace in the Mid­dle East. Kenan is a fea­ture writer for Yediot Achronot, from which the above was translated.

If you own copy­right to A Let­ter to All Good Peo­ple and you do not want me the pub­lish it here, let me know and I’ll, grudg­ing­ly, remove it.


If I remem­ber cor­rect­ly, at the time it pub­lished A Let­ter to All Good Peo­ple, Mid­stream was housed in the offices of the Jew­ish Agency for Israel (the Sochnut הסוכנות) at 515 Park Ave. in New York City. That build­ing has been torn down and a new, high-rise lux­u­ry apart­ment build­ing now has the address.

at 515 Park Ave., New York City
at 515 Park Ave., New York City
the lapel button for the Radical Zionist Alliance (Los Angeles, CA)
a lapel but­ton of the Rad­i­cal Zion­ist Alliance (Los Ange­les, CA)
Date:ca. 1971
Size:2.3
Pin Form:straight
Print Method:cel­lu­loid
TextRZA

some references to the Radical Zionist Alliance

Posted in politics, who | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Preparing for ראש השנה & יום כפור

Rais­ing this to the top for the time being. Elul has begun. We turn more inward as the world toss­es in tur­moil. Our strug­gles are both inter­nal and exter­nal. Per­haps, if we can cor­rect some of our inter­nal issues, that can make us stronger to deal with oth­er exter­nal sit­u­a­tions. The side­bar to the right lists oth­er thoughts I’ve pre­pared to help our focus dur­ing this period.

A num­ber of peo­ple have writ­ten new ver­sions of the Al Chet. The sec­tion: “All set? Let’s all do the al chet” includes a series of Sur­vey Mon­key ques­tion­naires that may help each of us under­stand the tra­di­tion­al Al Chet in new ways. Read­ers of the ques­tion­naires can answer the ques­tions anony­mous­ly and can print their answers for their own, lat­er, reference.

How did the על חטא (al ḥet) begin?

I don’t know.
How­ev­er, I imag­ine it some­thing like this

[…from the archives (with minor updating)]:

Bethami knew the way down the narrow windswept alleyways of Tiberias with her eyes closed.

The lap­ping of the tiny waves of Galilee offered a con­stant guide. She had walked this path many times, since her ear­li­est years, when she went with her moth­er to vis­it the rab­bi. The paving stones had already been worn smooth by the time of her youngest mem­o­ries.
R. Ila’i greet­ed her at the door to his apart­ment.
The soft light through the win­dows reflect­ed off the white­washed walls. The cool­ness of the room, in con­trast with the humid­i­ty out­side, com­fort­ed her. He sat there, as usu­al, on a woolen car­pet in the mid­dle of the room, qui­et­ly watch­ing the pat­terns on the wall before him. Scrolls and wax tablets cov­ered with writ­ing lay on the low tables beside, and in the cub­by holes behind him.

she came today on behalf of her husband, Judah

He had recent­ly begun to suf­fer extreme short­ness of breath and intense pains in his chest. A very high-strung man, Judah had worked hard and become impor­tant in his quar­ter of the city. In his free time he orga­nized efforts to coun­ter­act the increas­ing­ly unpleas­ant decrees of the Roman occu­piers. Though his neigh­bors agreed with his efforts, Judah felt they were too slow to respond.
Betha­mi sat before the rab­bi, near his line of vision and waited.

A person’s char­ac­ter can be judged by the way they han­dle three thingsבשלשה דברים אדם ניכר
drinkבכוסו
mon­eyובכיסו
and angerובכעסו


Betha­mi under­stood the wis­dom couched in the word­play [Eru­vin 65b], she didn’t know how to express it to Judah.
The nights were already longer than the days and in the deep val­ley where they lived, below the lev­el of the great sea, this made for very lit­tle day­light. Soon R. Ila’i would meet with his clos­est col­leagues to eval­u­ate how they had spent their time since the pre­vi­ous year. He request­ed that Betha­mi invite Judah to join him.

the sun set over the steep mountain to the west and the day of pardoning began

R. Ila’i wel­comed his col­leagues, his stu­dents, his neigh­bors, and a few invit­ed guests to his home. He had put the scrolls and wax tablets into their cub­bies ear­li­er in the day. The tables, he moved against the walls. Almost every­one in the room knew the oth­ers on a per­son­al lev­el. Judah sat near Pin­has, a young man he con­sid­ered a loose arrow, a young ruf­fi­an. See­ing the fel­low there with all the oth­ers ran­kled him.
Judah had nev­er heard R. Ila’i say an unkind word or per­form a hurt­ful act, and yet, as each new arrival entered the house, the rab­bi took him aside, bowed his head, and spoke words of apology.

Many are the ways I have dimin­ished the spark of the Holy One that lives in each of you. These actions may seem too insignif­i­cant for you to have noticed them. Nonethe­less, they weigh heav­i­ly on my heart. You know that much of my day I sit here and watch the walls that now embrace us. On them, as though [l’havdil] on a pagan stage, I see the way you act with one anoth­er. I see also the pain you car­ry inside yourselves–and cause for each oth­er. Please, today, each of us is equal in our trans­gres­sions. We each have drawn the string of our bow and loosed the arrow only to miss the mark. This does not make us bad peo­ple. Our Cre­ator makes us pure. The Holy One cre­at­ed us with only the abil­i­ty to aim, not the guar­an­tee of a per­fect hit every time.

All of us will die. Some of us may die this year, oth­ers at a lat­er date, but we all will die. I can­not pre­vent the dying, none of us can, but we have the abil­i­ty to ease our path through this life.

Some of us car­ry pains that point to their end. Our anger only increas­es the pain we car­ry and con­stricts our way. Togeth­er we can release the fury that burns in our souls.

Oth­ers among us have not yet found their way; there appears no clear­ly defined trail ahead, we seem­ing­ly blind­ly hit those near­by destroy­ing the har­bor that shel­ters us. Togeth­er we can buffer your bouts and guide you toward safe paths.

Our cre­ator has set aside this day of par­don­ing for us to gath­er the spent arrows lying around the field. Come with me as, togeth­er, we search the plains and thick­ets of our lives for those words let loose with­out thought, even those acts of help­ful­ness left undone.

having begun the process, R. Ila’i closed his eyes for a moment in silence

Those in atten­dance shift­ed uneasi­ly in their places. When he opened them he looked intent­ly and per­son­al­ly at each one of them with an invit­ing smile on his face. Slow­ly, he list­ed a litany of wrongs. In every­thing he men­tioned, he spoke for all present, as though the mis­takes had been com­mit­ted not against any one indi­vid­ual among them, but against the body of cre­ation itself. Though many had nev­er heard the phras­es before, they rec­og­nized them­selves in the images evoked.

For the error we have made, which hurt You, will­ing­ly and unwill­ing­ly.
For the error we have made, which hurt You, by hard­en­ing our hearts.
For the error we have made, which hurt You, by act­ing with­out think­ing.
For the error we have made, which hurt You, by the words of our lips.

as he continued some of R. Ila’i’s colleagues began to add expressions of their own

And then his stu­dents joined in the process. For every­one rec­og­nized some­thing of him­self in the words spo­ken soft­ly, and in truth.
Judah found him­self strange­ly at ease. The bur­dens of his respon­si­bil­i­ties sud­den­ly made dis­tant as he sat among these peo­ple. Bethami’s involve­ment with the rab­bi over many years had puz­zled him. She had gen­tly cajoled him into attend­ing the gath­er­ing and he now began to feel the effort was worth­while. He looked around him and saw men like him­self: some younger and oth­ers old­er, some who made their liv­ing by their wits and oth­ers by the sweat of their brow. Each one of them shared the same bound­aries of birth and death. His dai­ly rou­tine did not bring him into close con­tact with any one of them, yet he rec­og­nized vari­a­tions of his own fail­ings and strengths in them as he looked around the room. Nonethe­less, he avoid­ed the eyes of young Pinhas.

for his part, Pinhas squirmed

R. Ila’i had met him in the mar­ket one day and invit­ed him to come for the evening. In his late teens, all he knew was that he hat­ed. He felt no alle­giance to any­thing. Only the sear­ing eyes of R. Ila’i con­vinced, almost forced him to come. He would just as soon be out­side maraud­ing as sit among all these strangers he’d seen around town. Yet, though no one held him there, some­thing drew him clos­er into the circle.

the lamps began to sputter out

R. Ila’i again closed his eyes and lapsed once more into silence. He stood, turned to Pin­has, helped raise him to his feet, and said sim­ply: “Please return in the morn­ing.” He did the same with Judah. Then his stu­dents rose and helped Ila’i’s col­leagues get up as the neigh­bors and oth­er guests also arose.

they all left the quiet of R. Ila’i’s home into the silence of the street

The three-quar­ter moon glowed through gath­er­ing clouds that had moved north through the Jordan’s val­ley. As they slept, an ear­ly, unex­pect­ed rain washed the city.



Their home had been dark, and Betha­mi asleep, when he arrived, so Judah gen­tly awoke her before he left for R. Ila’i’s in the morn­ing.
He briefly told her of the evening. At the men­tion of Pin­has, he bris­tled but noticed that he looked for­ward to see­ing the young­ster and hoped he would attend. Judah felt the heat and humid­i­ty rise as he walked to the rabbi’s house, but the dust of the sum­mer that dirt­ied his bare feet the pre­vi­ous evening on his walk had already washed into the sea. This morn­ing he heard the singing of the waves as they licked clean the edges of the city. He, also, felt clean­er when he arrived at R. Ila’i’s home.

the day was long, much of it spent in the silence of thought

R. Ila’i repeat­ed the exer­cise of the pre­vi­ous night more than once. The day­light on each man’s face brought more direct­ness to everyone’s expres­sion in a way that the dim­ness of the evening’s lamp­light dis­guised. Each time they repeat­ed the phras­es they found new mean­ings in them, saw more of them­selves in one anoth­er and, as they looked around, for­gave each oth­er for their shared shortcomings.

except for Pinhas

The young­ster arrived late in the morn­ing, sweaty and disheveled from some stren­u­ous activ­i­ty. Though they had reserved room for him, when he sat, he fid­get­ed as though he had no space. His errat­ic motions dis­turbed the seren­i­ty that had begun to emerge among the oth­ers. The man beside him tried to ignore his pres­ence but it did no good. His agi­ta­tion persisted.

R. Ila’i stood and the room turned silent

He stepped over to Pin­has, sat before him, and placed his hands on the young man’s shoul­ders. Once again, the rab­bi’s eyes bore into his. The hands on his shoul­ders were strong; yet the touch felt light. The eyes were deep and dark yet he saw soft­ness in them. Ila’i spoke:

For the error we have made, which hurt You, will­ing­ly and unwill­ing­ly.
For the error we have made, which hurt You, by act­ing with­out think­ing.
For the error we have made, which hurt You, know­ing­ly and deceit­ful­ly.
For the error we have made, which hurt You, by wrong­ing others.


As he spoke, R. Ila’i slow­ly released his grip on Pin­has. The young man felt the hands become a ten­der caress and the chaos in him began to sub­side.
R. Ila’i returned to his place and the men beside Pin­has each placed a gen­tle, restrain­ing, hand on his knee.

toward the end of the day, doves perched on the windowsill of R. Ila’i’s home

He spoke of Jonah:

We need to change. Per­haps you con­sid­er that an impos­si­ble task. You sim­ply can­not change. You can’t release the anger and get to the point of for­give­ness. That was one of Jonah’s prob­lems. He felt per­verse­ly good about his anger and resist­ed change. Remem­ber…? God cre­at­ed a plant that briefly shad­ed Jon­ah and then destroyed it? Jonah’s response was ‘I am great­ly angry, even unto death.‘
Jon­ah was so angry he could die. God dis­cussed Jonah’s anger with him:
Jon­ah said:

Peo­ple need You to clear­ly and imme­di­ate­ly pun­ish wrong­do­ing. Peo­ple can’t change, they nev­er change.

God respond­ed:

Jon­ah, I threat­ened to destroy Nin­eveh because of their actions. Some of the peo­ple were prim­i­tive, igno­rant, cru­el, bar­bar­ic and not much dif­fer­ent from their cat­tle, but they can change, they have changed. This abil­i­ty to change makes them human, that is what makes me their God, as well as yours.

Jonah’s book is about us, ordi­nary peo­ple, whose poten­tial as humans is our abil­i­ty to change, and to let go of our anger.

as R. Ila’i spoke his voice dropped to a near whisper so everyone gathered closer to him and one another

Some of the men even held each oth­er in the cir­cle with their arms on one another’s shoul­ders. As the day end­ed, the light in the room again dimmed, but this time the changed light did not dis­guise the faces of those gath­ered, it soft­ened them. A new light of for­give­ness shown from them enlight­ened them and made them feel lighter of heart.
R. Ila’i paused again…

Five days from now, when the moon fills, we begin the Fes­ti­val of Sukkot. Each one of us is a sukkah, a frag­ile, del­i­cate, tem­po­rary taber­na­cle, a booth, a dwelling place of the Divine. So, also, the soci­ety with­in which we live is such a sukkah. I can see no room for anger and hatred or destruc­tive behav­ior in our sukkot. May the effort of this day help lift the bur­den of anger from our hearts and ease the path of our lives. May the embrace we share with one anoth­er now guide us toward cre­ativ­i­ty not destruc­tion.
U’fros aleinu sukkat shlo­mecha. Spread over us the taber­na­cle of Your whole­ness, Your peace.


This but­ton, dat­ing from the 1960s stress­es the point sug­gest­ed by R. Ila’i, that all of us are con­nect­ed and respon­si­ble for one anoth­er and our actions. The more com­mon expres­sion of the idea is “all of Israel are respon­si­ble for one anoth­er — כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה” Shavuot 39a

all Israel are friends
all Israel are friends
Date:1960s
Size:3.175
Pin Form:straight
Print Method:cel­lu­loid
Textכל

ישראל

חברים

your lapel buttons

Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jack­et you no longer wear, or poked into a cork­board on your wall. If you have any lying around that you do not feel emo­tion­al­ly attached to, please let me know. I pre­serve these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point, they will all go to an appro­pri­ate muse­um. You can see all the but­tons shared to date.

Posted in from the archives, holidays, judaica, ritual | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

embrace the potential of each generation of seeds

Deuteron­o­my 20:19
כִּ֤י הָֽאָדָם֙ עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה
Are trees of the field human?

In this New Year,
may we embrace the potential of
each generation of seeds to
transform the fields of our planet for good.
May these seeds yield
growth, blessing, repair, and peace.

A con­tem­po­rary view of this verse stress­es the sym­bol­ic nature of trees: “the anthro­po­mor­phic form of trees, which like peo­ple have roots (feet), a trunk (body), branch­es (hands), twigs (fin­gers), and leaves (hair).” (Prof. Shai Secun­da of Bard College)

This idea of human­iz­ing trees is at the core of the poem by award-win­ning Israeli poet Natan Zach titled “Tree of the Field.” Writ­ten after the 1982 Israeli war with Lebanon and set to music by Shalom Chanoch, it became a nation­al song of grief.

In prepar­ing this year’s card, I extend this metaphor. As the tree sym­bol­izes humans, the field rep­re­sents our nat­ur­al world, a sym­bi­ot­ic relationship.

In this year’s card the Hebrew let­ters that spell tree: עץ (in script form, with the ע invert­ed) depict the tree. Sim­i­lar­ly, the script of the let­ters that spell [grass­es of] the field: השדה por­tray the field.

A num­ber of ren­di­tions of the song are avail­able on YouTube:

Amer­i­can Can­tor Azi Schwartz:

Israeli singer Shalom Chanoch

Israeli singer Nurit Galron

initial concept

At the Jan­u­ary 2023 gath­er­ing of the Pacif­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Reform Rab­bis, I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a work­shop on cre­ativ­i­ty and the rab­binate. We were offered a prompt. Com­bin­ing Gen­e­sis 2:9 and Deuteron­o­my 20:19, I drew:

עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה⁩ | ט֥וֹב וָרָֽע

I imag­ined the “tree of the field” as the tree of the knowl­edge of good and evil in the cen­ter of the garden.

The image and the thought were too com­plex to fit into my 4″ x 6″ format:

Deuteron­o­my 20;19 & Gen­e­sis 2:9 (over­ly complex!)

settling on simple

the cut blocks:

עֵ֣ץ
הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה⁩

the prints:

עֵ֣ץ
הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה⁩
Posted in holidays, judaica, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment