Elana. This letter has long been coming. I have postponed it time and time again, hoping not to exacerbate a situation, trying to understand how and what made you have such powerful and deep feelings, growing conviction that apparently all that was wrong with us, the Jewish nation, was a burden only for us to carry.
I think you are a brilliant woman. Your books are on my bookshelves. I even agree with much of what you say. The anguish. And despair. The turning around to see who was there to help. And no one is there at all. I know those feelings. I have those same feelings many a time.
However, even as your care and concern for humanity are clear as crystal, there is a piece missing. Perhaps it is caught up in the tangle of emotion of what you write about so well. But in all of the sympathy and all of the empathy running throughout your writing, there is something missing. Or something which does not belong there. It provides a coloration to your essays and postings, to so much of your writing which precludes its acceptance by some who would otherwise tune it to it.
I cannot make or pass judgment on your anger. Of things that might or might not have gone right or wrong as you grew up. We went to the same school. Basically, lived the same lives. And as we matured, became adults, women in our own right, many of our questions were the same. Many of the answers were never proffered to us. Much of our concerns were identical. The rights for women, the need to modernize viewpoints of education and roles for them within the world and within Judaism in particular.
No more side tracking. No more B level expectations. To put an end to the growing desire to quash the sound of women's voices raised in prayer. Be it in the synagogues. Or at the Kotel. To use our intelligence wisely, for the benefit of our people. How long did it take to make some progress, to reach the point where we now have schools which graduate rabbanits, equal in knowledge to the training and education given to aspiring rabbis. Brilliant women are emerging, well immersed and versed in knowledge and love of Torah and Yahadut, but unwilling to remain as second class citizens. Unwilling to have to turn aside and/or downplay their G-d given intelligence.
I am so proud of these women. I am so pleased and joyous. as they push the envelope, at their insistence to be recognized as equal. There is still a long way to go. There is much to be done. Among extreme sects of religions there is much opposition to this movement. They have the same strictures re free thought, more prominence and equality of women, perhaps even the superiority of women. All these extremes have their heads twisted so that their vision is limited. They live in a 'cave' - of their own making - such as found within Plato's writing and see the shadows on the wall as the real world.
The real world differs. All cannot walk in lockstep. Nor can the anguish one might feel for all humanity allow one to simply walk away from all that has gone before. Toss away the good with the bad and be merged with yet another extreme. These extremes leave no room, no place for compromise coming from both sides of the aisle. Nothing more and nothing less than what goes on every day in houses of legislature around the world. At least where there remains some sense, some format of democracy. But we must be better than that. We must not become so bitter that we cannot hear the world's truths now hidden away and denied.
I have long told my children as they were growing up and even as adults, that once a door is shut and the person enters the house, there is no knowing for sure what is happening behind that door. Thus, we must, we need to learn and practice understanding. Compassion. Knowing that there are things and situations unknown to us. That there are three sides, possibly even more, to every issue. We need to grasp the concept that there is no one side totally right and one side totally not. One side pure and one side totally filled with a blackness of soul allowing for no light to enter.
I believe there are very few of the Jewish residents of Israel who are revenge crazed. Even those who have been victims of terrorism. Losing family and friends. Losing literal pieces of themselves. The overwhelming wish and feeling among the Jewish population, the most intense desire is for peace to reign. For an end to fighting. An end to the deaths. An end to the harm and hate which they have been pelted and bombarded lo these many a millennium. Yes, there is anger. Rightly so. Yes, there is despair. How many more years, how much longer are we to be subjected to this never-ending abuse?
There is much of the contradictory and hypocritical that is contained within religion. Those, even those who call themselves devout, pick and choose from within its pages and ignore the foremost promise in its contents - that of the ancestral homeland, in perpetuity, to Abraham and his descendants, and reiterated numerous times in the following books. For all eternity.
But religion is more manmade than G-d made. It is the extremes and the interpretations that mankind has made to religion that stretches its fabric to the point where there was no more give. We all need to remember that faith is the beginning point. The middle point. And the end point. Anything that interferes with that true faith is that which needs attention and understanding. And yes, even purification. Is that possible? Given the apparently innate weak points or lack of willpower in proper decision making within humans - well, suffice it to say that we have failed abysmally in that field.
Frankly, no matter how brilliant you are, Elana, no matter how much you have contributed and will continue to contribute to the world in which you live, to your people, with all respect, your anguish at current situations has been bleeding more and more to one side as compared to another. In your sympathy with and for those who have suffered, you forget that the wars, for the most part have been perpetrated by them. Foisted upon them by their self-proclaimed foes. Their refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to return to their homeland. That very same homeland promised to them in the Bible. Jewish. Catholic. Christian. Muslim. It is right there. It even is referred to through the centuries as the Promised Land. Yet. they close their eyes, refused to see, and engaged in constant warfare and attack.
Were more people killed than should have been? Personally, I wish nobody had been killed. But there are wishes and there is reality. Unfortunately, reality has not been kind. to us, to your people, and yes, Elana. Your people are the people into which you were born, the people in which you were raised. If you find there are things to correct in their viewpoints, then do so. Step outside the boundaries. Push the envelope. Kick a few butts. But never believe that only in deserting your family. and feeling pain only for those who have attacked your people can you speak out. There, there you have gone wrong.
It is disappointing in that turning away from your people in overwhelming manner, in throwing in perhaps a sentence or two of sympathy for the men and the women constantly being called back to go to war. The overwhelming coloration of your pieces grows ever darker. It is the coloration of one who only sees blame on one side. Or perhaps in disappointment, perhaps even in love, who wished our people to do better, as we all do, and in their failure to do so, to meet your high expectations, that high bar you have sent before them, you have gotten angrier with them. More and more disappointed with them. More judgmental, until finally you and those who follow you have lost your way.
No matter how sincere your Muslim partners are, even in an apparent dual search for peace, history has taught us that lies and intransigence at the very end of it all are too often present. They dream of an end to the Jews who dare to live upon land they mistakenly claim as their own. Belonging to a people called Palestinian, a made-up name for a made-up land. Check the truth of history as to the population on the land and when and why they came - to work under the Turkish reign.
When push comes to shove, we have no one to rely on other than ourselves. Sometimes life is harsh and hard. And heartbreaking. But there is no reason why we have to accept that condition as a permanent condition of being Jewish. There is no reason why we have to think that if we place all the pain and all the blame upon this people, this stubborn people, that the problems and the conflicts there and in the rest of the world will resolve. Done. Though the world's media and spokespeople continue to trace all that is unpleasing to them back to Israel and/or Jews. We do not, must not, buy it.
We are not perfect. Not as individuals. Not as a nation. Have there been times of misbehavior by soldiers of the Israeli army? I have no doubts of that. War is a time of great emotion, of lack of control and proper thinking. But that is not the reining and commonplace event. The Army of Israel is known and acknowledged to be the best in it's over the top efforts to minimize civilian casualties. Even in very difficult and hostile situations. Nor is it their responsibility for the perverse tactics of their foe which maximize the deaths of civilians so as to accuse Israel before a world disposed to believe any lies about Israel.
Furthermore. if we adopt the tactic of looking for contextual reasoning and justification. for acts of violence, Israel is certainly not at a lack for them. This game is currently played with such justification only on the side of the Arabs and foes of Israel. Even as Israel is denied any such justification.
However, that does not mean that wrongs are to be tolerated. Nor are we to accept being lumped into one ugly batch of misfired clay. All those who live over that "green line" are not "settlers". Most people who live in Judea and Samaria are those who believe in the promise made by the Lord to Abraham. They wish.to live in peace with their neighbors. Work with them. But time and time again their hope, their faith, their trust have been violated.
Hence. there is a very small group who feel that contextual excuse to wreak violence upon Arabs of the area justifies their miscreant behavior. It is equally as wrong, but goose and gander always are present. Such behavior must be acknowledged, condemned and punished on both sides. Elana, you have forgotten that, seemingly and have gone way overboard in your sympathy for Arabs caught in this web of violence, but there appears to be little, if any at all, sympathy for those of your people victimized in such manner and more frequently. Empathy with your people seems to have disappeared from much of your writing and that is both off-putting and distressful to so many, and in particular to those who admired much of what you have achieved.
At this point I stop, to continue tomorrow, already well on its way to completion.
This is meant to be taken with dollops of trust, admiration and concern.
Always.
Written with respect for a brilliant, caring woman pushed us, so many are these days, to distraction out of worry and concern for humanity.
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