Category Archives: Contemporary Life

A Teachable Moment

Posted on November 13, 2009 | Comments Off

Israel is, again, locked on the horns of a dilemma. Having been indicted by the “world community” (in the guise of the Goldstone report) for alleged war crimes in its conduct of last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, it faces unenviable and unacceptable choices.

Goldstone himself suggested Israel could partly exculpate itself by conducting its own investigation into the conduct of its soldiers. But that presupposes an outcome to the investigation that, presumably, satisfies the world community – and such an outcome is unlikely in the extreme.

If the investigation reveals that the Israel Defense Forces went above and beyond the norms of warfare in its regard for civilian welfare – notifying thousands of civilians in advance of any attack through leaflets, text messages and even cell phone calls – then the conclusions will be dismissed as a whitewash.

If the investigation reveals that some civilians were killed – an avoidable consequence of every war – Israel will be castigated and its soldiers and politicians deemed war criminals and international pariahs. Conventional wisdom would therefore dictate that an investigation is futile – a classic no-win situation – as a biased jury has already prejudged the outcome.

This is underscored by the blatant hypocrisy that fuels the entire process. The contempt that most of the world community has for Israel is so pronounced that it would rather rewrite the rules of warfare than concede that Jews have a right to self-defense – i.e., a right to not have an enemy fire missiles with impunity on the heads of its civilians.

And so the Goldstone report argues, in an unctuous way completely divorced from the realities of warfare, that an attacked party cannot respond if enemy civilians might be harmed – a most novel, unprecedented and bizarre interpretation; one that would revolutionize warfare as we know it and a standard that obviously no nation has any intention of ever applying to any country except to Israel, and certainly not to itself.

It would be the stuff of comedy and farce if the stakes were not so serious.

Nonetheless, handled correctly, we have arrived unwittingly at what President Obama likes to call a “teachable moment,” a moment in which the Jewish people can assume our natural roles as moral educators to the rest of mankind. Stated another way, it is a “J’Accuse” moment – a chance to upend the tables at the anti-Israel festival that is unfolding before our eyes and startle the world with the recitation of uncomfortable truths – as did Emile Zola when he exposed the framing of Alfred Dreyfus.

Israel should investigate its conduct of war – and preface its report with a brief history of the norms of warfare, with the prohibition of deliberately targeting civilians, with the horrific fate of civilians that is so typical in battle, with the challenges of fighting an enemy that utilizes civilians as weapons, and with the conduct in warfare, even recently, of some of Israel’s leading accusers.

The report could cite Sudan, a proud member of the UN’s Human Rights Council, and its murder of millions of innocent civilians in Darfur in the last decade. It could cite Russia, and its brutality against tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Chechnya, and China, whose own civilians are subject to imprisonment and deprivation.

It should note the case of Syria, which leveled its own city of Hama in 1982 and in the process killed approximately 20,000 civilians, and Turkey, which for ninety years has stonewalled its massacre of more than one million Armenians. The report can mention, delicately, of course, the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of civilians were killed – not because of malice or malevolence but simply because dead civilians are the unfortunate collateral damage of every war.

Less delicately, the report could mention that the atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed civilians almost exclusively – and, ironically, saved both American and Japanese lives, as the human toll taken by a land invasion would have been much greater. Similarly, the Allied bombing of Dresden and other German cities in 1945 killed tens of thousands of civilians, and also hastened the end of the war. Certainly Germany’s record in treating civilians in wartime is well known, except perhaps to the Iranian government, itself a wanton murderer of civilians during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

These nations and most others – past and current perpetrators of ferocious violence against civilians they now regard as sacrosanct – deign to sit in judgment of Israel, which never targeted civilians; which fought an enemy that disguised itself as civilians (against international law), used civilians as human shields and hid its weapons and rocket launchers in hospitals, mosques and residential areas; which killed at most several hundred civilians – civilians who had voted into power the despots who launched the incessant war against Israel. Civilians? Yes, for the most part. Innocent civilians? Hardly.

As the report continues, Israel can then refer to the unprecedented measures it took to avoid civilian casualties – the warnings, the notifications – all of which impaired its operational abilities and the successes of its missions as it informed the enemy of the locations of Israel’s counterattacks. It can note, with sadness, that half of Israel’s own war resulted from friendly fire, an even more unfortunate consequence of the fog of war.

Israel should certainly regret its error in surrendering Gaza to the forces of terror – as the “world community” had encouraged, of course, guaranteeing then – then, not now – that Israel would always retain the right of self-defense in case of aggression launched from Gaza.

Israel should then express its pride and admiration at the humanity, morality and skill of its fighting forces, and the inherent difficulty in fighting an enemy that targets civilians and cares not at all about its own except to use them as cannon fodder.

And in conclusion, the report can state what is patently clear to any impartial observer: that this indictment is just another weapon in the Arab war against Israel – a classic attempt by those who are waging asymmetrical warfare to demoralize the people of Israel, and induce it to make additional territorial concessions that will garner short-term praise but engender long-term vulnerability.

Israel should state unequivocally that it categorically rejects the double standard the world is employing and should insist that the judges first judge themselves before sitting in judgment of others.

Israel should declare that it will not play in a macabre game in which the rules change in order to coerce an outcome deleterious to Israel’s strategic position and existence; that “peace” negotiations are not warranted and “peace” itself not feasible in the current, hostile environment; and that Israel will continue – despite the world’s hypocrisy and duplicity – to aspire to moral goodness, and to highlight, as is our divinely-ordained mission, what is right and what is wrong, what is moral and what is immoral, what is the word of God and what is the falsification of the word of God.

The report should not refer at all to any specific acts during the recent battle, as the findings will convince no one and accomplish nothing productive. Israel must reject the impression that it is sitting in the dock, but rather stand with pride behind the preacher’s lectern and lecture a world whose moral compass is severely askew, once again.

Urging this band of haters to look in the mirror may not inspire them to either repentance or honesty, but it will clear our consciences and strengthen us with new resolve for the battles that loom just over the horizon.

Reprinted from www.JewishPress.com

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

Tower of Babel Redux

Posted on November 11, 2009 | 1 comment

This is a sensitive subject.

The builders of the ancient Tower of Babel always appear to us to be knaves and primitives. The very notion of constructing a “tower with its top to the heavens” strikes us – sophisticated modern types – as bizarre and downright silly. Even more so is the commentary of the rabbis of old that every Jewish child is taught: the tower eventually reached such a great height that it took a year to climb to the top. Therefore, “a brick was more precious in the eyes of the builders than a human being. If a man fell and died, they paid no attention to him. But if a brick fell, they wept.”

What a terrible indictment of a society in which human life is unappreciated and man’s well- being is an afterthought in pursuit of a superior goal! It would be comical if it were not tragic – but who could believe that any society – even ancient ones – could be so cavalier about life and health and individual worth? Surely such a disgraceful phenomenon could not exist in our day.

Welcome to professional football, an outlet for man’s aggressive instincts for both participants and viewers – and worse: the Tower of Babel redux. Think about it: there rarely a game in which a human being is not carted off the field because of some serious injury, only to be replaced by another equally at risk. It is a game that in the first instance is intentionally violent, in which physical confrontation on the battlefield (the line of scrimmage, and note the military terminology rampant in football – blitz, bomb) is at the heart of each play, and where tackling the opposition – quarterback, running back, receiver – hard is the mark of a dedicated player.

Surely there is concern when a player is injured, but not outrage or disgust. Injuries are “part of the game.” Real outrage and disgust is reserved for those occasions when the brick – i.e., the football – is lost, through fumble, interception or just poor play. That is the tragedy; that draws the spectator’s ire and dismay. Injuries – concussions, broken bones, torn ligaments and cartilage, the occasional paralysis – are “just part of the game.” Players can be replaced, but the loss of the football is a lost opportunity that can never be regained.

What does that say about us as a society? At least the builders of the Tower of Babel, also nonchalant about human suffering, had a political and spiritual objective in mind. Here, human beings are watching fellow human beings attempt to maim each other, and for what? Entertainment. Amusement.

Contrast football with the other major sports, all of which involve some risk but not the persistent mayhem of football. Baseball, by comparison, is a bucolic sport, in which the threat of injury – aside from the rare beaning – comes from players overreaching in their physical efforts, exceeding the limits of what the body can tolerate. Basketball is, by definition a “non-contact sport,” at least in the sense that physical contact is penalized. And although American hockey has body checks (unlike European hockey), those are sidelights to the game – the team wins through goals not hits, and excessive aggression is also punished.

Football stands alone in its brutality, and although I don’t have time to watch much football in any event, I am losing the inclination as well. (Basketball is also increasingly hard to watch. For years, the New York area had two professional basketball teams. Today, we have none.) It is a celebration of violence marked by the occasional demonstration of a variety of skills that should be inappropriate in a civilized society. Undoubtedly, it serves as a release for the pent-up frustrations of millions of people, but that is scant justification. In its pandering to peoples’ basest instincts, it parallels boxing and bull-fighting – both recreations of singular viciousness and inhumanity.

Football’s popularity is a reflection on our values, and also a telling reminder to all of us that perhaps the builders of the Tower of Babel was not as primitive or ridiculous as they seem at first glance. We are merely, sad to say, modern echoes of a very ancient distortion of the human personality. Perhaps owning up to that is the first step to regaining our humanity, and building a society of faith, goodness and holiness.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Conclusions

Posted on November 6, 2009 | 1 comment

World Trade Center I (1993).

World Trade Center II (2001).

September 11, 2001.

Richard Reid, Shoe Bomber, December 2001.

El Sayid Nosair (assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, November 1990)

John Muhammed (Beltway sniper, 10 murdered, 2002).

Abdul Muhammed (Little Rock, Arkansas, Army recruitment center, one person murdered, 2009).

Nadil Hassan (Fort Hood, November 5, 2009, twelve murdered).

President Obama, November 6, 2009: “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

Now, what conclusions could we possible come to ? That each of these terrorist murderers was a Muslim ? That Americans should be on guard against a fifth column that might number in the thousands, that is not reluctant to kill or to die, that serves a master that loves death more than we love life, that is part of a new world jihad ? Certainly no sane person would jump to any of those conclusions.

So the New York Times eight hours after the incident preferred to report that the shooter had “expressed no religious preference,” attempting to conceal his Muslim identity. And others – often Muslim apologists but not exclusively so – will pretend that this was an anti-war act having nothing to do with Islam, or the result of the stresses of serving (poorly) in the combat zone of Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington or his forthcoming deployment to the Middle East.

And people will find fault with the Army – why didn’t they foresee these horrific crimes given Hassan’s anti-American rants in the last year or two ? – to which the answer is: had he been discharged, or prosecuted, or demoted, or treated, he would have cried “anti-Muslim discrimination!” and “freedom of speech!” and his discharge would have been a cause celebre, and the anti-American and anti-Jewish haters at CAIR would have wrapped themselves in the flag and the Constitution defending his rights and lamenting his mistreatment. And most Americans would have joined them, and like sheep continue to tolerate the spectacle of old women with arthritis having to remove their shoes at airport security lest “good people” be accused of profiling the only targets.

These arguments – much like the Goldstone Report that is attempting to deny Israel any right of self-defense (more on that next week) are not serious arguments but ploys, rhetorical tricks that are seducing an entire generation – including politicians – that does not want to ever jump to conclusions, or, better said, just report the obvious.

And those who warn constantly of the threat of the home grown jihad will continue preaching to the few who will listen, unable to attract the attention those will not even crawl to conclusions, much less jump to them.

Hassan’s profile appears much like Israel’s bulldozer terrorists – people who exhibited no prior signs of violent behavior, and “appear” to have snapped. But “appearances” deceive. We will never learn, but can suspect, that there are sleeper cells among us that are activated at the will of the terrorists – that seem then to be random attacks but are not random at all.

Certainly we cannot jump to conclusions. But if we did, we could state the glaring and obvious reality that the last 25 years has banged us over the head with: not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. And when all terrorists emerge from one group, then measures can be taken within that group – if the will is there – and from outside that group in order to protect society from their madness.

We can choose to see, or choose to not see. Americans who avoid conclusions choose not to see, and when those Americans are in positions of power and influence, we are all in danger.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

The Pursuit of Happiness

Posted on October 30, 2009 | Comments Off

The Declaration of Independence acknowledged that mankind is endowed with a number of “unalienable rights,” among them “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While the first two rights are generally understood in both general and specific forms – government cannot capriciously take another person’s life or encroach on his liberty – it is the third that has proved most vexing to define, categorize, quantify and achieve. Note, as many have, that there is no guaranteed right to happiness; rather the right is defined as the pursuit of happiness – each person in his/her own way. And therein lies the hoary problem: if it is a pursuit, how do we know where to find it? In what direction do we turn in order to commence our pursuit of happiness, and at what point do we say that we have found it?

A traditional Torah definition – happiness is the state of satisfaction of a being fulfilling the purpose for which it was created – is both provocative and accurate, but also requires additional explication. Fortunately, modern man quantifies, analyzes, measures and concludes from an inordinate amount of hard date – even in the realm of happiness – that leaves us capable of finding appropriate guidance. Thus, for the last 45 years, almost a third of Americans have consistently defined themselves as “very happy,” and despite great fluctuations during this time in income, social trends, and national stability (1972-30%; 1982-31%; 1993-32%; and 2004-31%). It is remarkably consistent.

These are the findings of a recent book by Syracuse University economics professor Arthur C. Brooks, entitled “Gross National Happiness.” Of course, the most critically important data delineate exactly what each person should want to know – what makes happy people happy? In what realms should we seek to find happiness, and what aspects of life should be enhanced? His conclusions are illuminating, at first glance somewhat surprising, and, upon reflection, most comforting to the Torah Jew.

For example, political conservatives have always polled significantly higher than political liberals on the “very happy” chart – averaging between 10-15% points higher, with the two groups only intersecting in 1974 and 1985. Equal percentages of secular liberals say they are “very happy” and “not too happy” (22%), whereas religious conservatives are ten times more likely to say they are “very happy” than “not too happy” (50%-5%). These statistics transcend ethnic groups and income levels. Religious liberals say they are as happy as secular conservatives (33%).

There are a number of reasons for this, all instructive. Conservatives generally value the role of the individual in society, and place much more emphasis on individual initiative and personal responsibility. Liberals tend to focus on the collective. Conservatives, thus, usually donate more money to charity than do liberals, volunteer more, and even donate more blood. Liberals generally support government solutions to social problems (health

coverage reform, anyone?), and therefore see their primary role as inducing government to act on behalf of the less fortunate. What is relevant here is not which group is more politically successful or logical, but that it is much easier to feel successful when one can rely on his own actions than when it is necessary to rely on the actions of everyone else, especially since the acts of the collective (even successful ones) do not necessarily reflect any individual accomplishment.

Furthermore, liberals are generally discontented with the state of society, and see injustice, victimization, and discrimination everywhere. They are forever, like the mythical Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill and watching it roll down again, and are therefore less likely to feel happy than conservatives who wish to “conserve” the status quo, for better or for worse.

Even more to the point, and most reflective of America’s divisions today, conservatives are twice as likely as liberals to attend weekly religious services, and liberals are twice as likely as conservatives to never attend religious services. And conservatives are also much more likely to be married (2/3) than liberals (only 1/3), and more likely to have children and to have larger families than do liberals. (Children, oddly, decrease short-term happiness but increase long-term happiness.) Married conservatives are three times more likely to say they are “very happy” than are single liberals. Married people generally are six times more likely to say they are “very happy” (they had better!) than unmarried people. Almost twice as many religious people say they are “very happy” when compared with secular people (43%-23%). (Interestingly, agnostics are gloomier people than atheists.) Why ?

Religious people are more likely to be part of a nurturing community (social integration is a key determinant of happiness) and people who live in religious communities tend also to be more financially successful – because those communities reinforce a culture of hard work and prosperity. Religious people also have an innate purpose in life that affords meaning even to the most mundane aspects of life. It is understandable then that – to take the two extremes – 52% of married, religious, conservative people with children describe themselves as “very happy,” whereas only 14% of secular, single liberals without children describe themselves in that way. That validates, to an extent, Tolstoy’s observation at the beginning of “Anna Karenina” that “all happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

In another subset, people who donate money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are “very happy,” and volunteers are 42% more likely to be “very happy” than people who never volunteer.

All these numbers are exhaustively and comprehensively crunched in this engaging book – you can literally look it up – and all to tell us what we already know (!).

The keys to happiness are:

Faith: “Serve Hashem with joy, come before His presence with song” (Tehillim 100:2) and “be glad of heart, all who seek Hashem” (Tehillim 105:3).

Marriage:“It is not good for man to dwell alone, I will make a helper for him” (Breisheet 2:18).

Work: “When you eat the labor of your own hands, you are happy, and it is good for you” (Tehillim 128:2).

To be sure, there are plenty of unhappy conservatives, unhappy religious people, unhappy marrieds, happy liberals, happy singles and happy seculars – so none of this affects the life of any individual person who still must make his/her own choices. Abraham Lincoln said that “most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” And, of course, life throws us its curves every now and then that necessitate adjustments, and cause temporary variations in our happiness levels.. But the overall message for us is one that is worth summarizing and internalizing: How does one pursue happiness ? Get married, start a family, stay married, go to shul, do mitzvot, give tzedaka, do acts of chesed, work hard and be a friend to others.

And realize that these are Hashem’s blessings that He bestows according to His will.

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Posted in 1, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought