Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

      Here’s a quick take on the big Middle East summit that will take place next week, and fail miserably. No one here in Israel – right or left – trusts Binyamin Netanyahu. The right suspects he is a man without principle, and the left suspects that he is secretly a hawk (if so, it is a well-guarded secret). No one here trusts Mahmoud Abbas, the PA “President” whose term ended more than 18 months ago but who continues to rule in that charade of an entity known as the Palestinian Authority. Hamas doesn’t trust him because even talking to the accursed Jews is perceived by much of the Islamic world as an obscene sellout, Israelis don’t trust him because it has suddenly dawned on all but the willfully-blind that a man who was Arafat’s deputy for 40 years is unlikely to be a Zionist, and his own people don’t trust him because…well, his term expired around the same time George W. Bush left office but somehow Abbas is still around. And no one trusts Barack Obama, whose natural sympathies for the Arabs have been somewhat muted for political reasons but whose understanding of the Arab-Israeli dynamic is perceived by all sides as woefully inadequate. Obama’s early humiliation of Israel is not forgotten here, and his (self-) heralded Cairo speech and outreach to the Muslims has been mocked by the Arab world, when not ignored altogether.

      Obama, master of the grand speech and empty gesture, is likely to make several more, attempt to show a foreign policy “accomplishment” that cannot be attributed to a George W. Bush policy, and bask in the good intentions that generate glowing editorials in the liberal press, but little else.

      So, no one wants to be in Washington next week, and it will show. The Palestinians have been threatening to leave even before they arrive – a neat trick – all to put pressure on Israel as the impediment to peace. In that, they might succeed, because of Israel’s legendary, mediocre negotiating skills. Pressure will be put on Netanyahu to maintain the building “freeze” in Judea and Samaria. As predicted here last year, the Arabs would wait until the very end of this “gesture” to pocket new concessions in exchange for Israel to have to privilege of sitting with them and surrendering. It is a strange world we live in.

      A week ago, I visited a family living in one of the settlements on a street with beautiful private homes, but across from an empty lot strewn with rocks, sand and garbage that looked incongruous. Asking whether anyone was planning on building there, my host reminded me of the freeze. Someone had bought the lot and hired a contractor who was ready to build, but the freeze intervened before they could lay the foundation. How bizarre, how immoral, if you think about it in those terms ! A Jew is not allowed to build a home, in Israel, because of pressure placed on a weak, feckless Israeli government by Obama and Clinton to induce the Arabs to come to the peace table, once again, and again, and again. I don’t know who is more shameless – the Americans who demanded it or the Israelis who succumbed. But a lot – thousands actually – stands vacant and fallow, because of …why, again ?

      Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is so blunt in his speech that he – rare for a foreign minister – is almost not allowed to conduct foreign affairs – was asked this morning whether the “gesture” (the freeze) should be extended. He answered, as is his tendency, that the time for Israeli gestures is over. Let the Arabs make some gestures for once. “It can’t be that we always have to pay for the pleasure of sitting at a table with the Palestinians; let them pay as well.” He makes so much sense that I doubt he will even be allowed in Washington. Of course, even he is not trusted because his policy positions don’t always match his rhetoric, and to keep him in line, a “police investigation” now hangs over his head for almost a decade.

       Nor does any significant segment of the population here – even on the left – believe anymore in the efficacy of the “two-state solution.” That dog won’t hunt. Even if Abbas started wearing a kippa seruga, he is a chief without Indians, i.e., he represents no real constituency. He could not make any concessions even if he wanted to, so negotiating with him is like entering into a contract for the purchase of a house with someone who is not the owner. The paperwork could be in order, and the rituals followed perfectly – but nothing really happens in the end except the buyer loses money if he is foolish enough to pay. The “Palestine” dreamed of by the naïve utopians who are the useful idiots of the evildoers who hate Israel has absolutely no resources, industry, talents or infrastructure to support a modern state. Their national history is as much a fabrication as the notion that their future intentions are peaceful and wholesome. So their renewed “demand” for a continuation of the freeze is a smokescreen.

      Of course, why then have such an event ? Everyone knows that, at present, the minimum the Arabs will accept (Israel’s self-destruction) is more than the maximum the Israelis are currently willing to give (more expulsions and surrender of land). Certainly, Obama needs a optimistic photo op, with the American economy still tanking, unemployment and the market stagnant at unpleasant levels, the US sinking into bankruptcy level debt, and Democrats fleeing from his very presence for their electoral lives. In some quarters, he gets credit even for trying. The real danger, as always, is for Israel. They are the only party expected to make concessions (after all, get ready to hear again about the “Arab street” and how Arab public opinion suddenly matters in that region of 23 brutal dictatorships), and those concessions are pocketed in exchange for new papers, words, promises and ceremonies. It is a macabre dance that every American president – even those with purer motivations than Obama – tries to choreograph.

The estimable George Will: “The biggest threat to peace might be the peace process — or, more precisely, the illusion that there is one. The mirage becomes the reason for maintaining its imaginary “momentum” by extorting concessions from Israel, the only party susceptible to U.S. pressure. Israel is, however, decreasingly susceptible. In one month, history will recycle when the partial 10-month moratorium on Israeli construction on the West Bank expires. Resumption of construction — even here, in the capital, which was not included in the moratorium — will be denounced by a fiction, “the international community,” as a threat to another fiction, “the peace process.”

     Israel has to learn to say “no.” In that, Lieberman would be a much more effective spokesman than the glib Netanyahu, who is too clever by half and thinks he can speechify his way out of any predicament. Instead, he just sounds both duplicitous and disingenuous, and makes his interlocutors – fiends that they are – look straightforward by comparison. His approach is good – insistence on Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish state (that’ll stick in their craw for a century or two), demilitarization, end to incitement, etc. – but the great unknown is whether he has the fortitude to stick with it. His track record is not good; hence, the apprehension whenever he embarks on one of these missions.

     Perhaps the time will come soon when a credible Israeli spokesmen will address his own people, and the world community, as adults, and tell them that peace is not at hand, that the Arab rejection of Israel’s continued existence is unabated, and that the only democracy in the Middle East cannot jeopardize its existence to accommodate terrorists, and that negotiations are on hold indefinitely until the Arab states democratize. That should be a winning argument, at least among the decent people. And among the indecent, it does not really matter.

      And Israel is in a good place now – economically and militarily. Terror has decreased considerably, and the PA police have done a commendable job in this regard in Judea and Samaria – not because they love Israel but because they hate Hamas (remembering well, as Jews do not, how the Hamas threw the PA police officers by the dozens off roofs in Gaza when Hamas conquered it in 2006). Patrols in the Arab towns and villages, arrests of terrorists and the thwarting of terrorist acts before they are launched have engendered a sense of security and calm that is much enjoyed after the terrible decade (1995-2005). The myth of the “demographic bogeyman” has been exploded by research, mainly that of Yoram Ettinger. Israel’s population is growing as the Arab growth has stagnated.

     The Arabs will certainly play their usual game, and threaten to walk out whenever their demands are not met. If that happens, the Israelis should simply point to the door. Can Netanyahu restrain his impulse to be liked, and put the onus on the Arabs ? Can he demand the immediate release of Gilad Schalit as an Arab good-will gesture, and the immediate release of Jonathan Pollard as an American good-will gesture ? He certainly can; that he likely won’t is to his discredit. Even worse, he will seek to split the difference – a “partial freeze” – thinking it offers everyone something. In fact, it just makes everyone distrust and dislike him.

      Fortunately, this empty ceremony will likely last just a day, break up into “committees” that will accomplish nothing, and send everyone home in time for Rosh Hashana.

 It could not come soon enough.

      A modern Hebrew word encapsulates the purposes and benefits of vacation. The word nofesh, used to mean recreation or vacation, is rooted in the word nefesh, or soul. Nofesh affords one the opportunity to refresh and revitalize the soul, to relax, think, read, write and recreate, away from the demands of every day life. Its need is universal, but recently, several articles have championed the indispensability of vacations for the practitioners of one particular profession, the clergy.

      The New York Times featured two such articles recently, the first by a former pastor dealing with the phenomenon of clergy burnout.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/opinion/08macdonald.html?src=me&ref=general)

“[P]art of the problem, as researchers have observed, is that pastors work too much. Many of them need vacations, it’s true. But there’s a more fundamental problem that no amount of rest and relaxation can help solve: congregational pressure to forsake one’s highest calling.” The writer describes quite vividly the changes in clergy expectations in recent years: “The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them…[Clergy are] no longer expected to offer moral counsel in pastoral care sessions or to deliver sermons that make the comfortable uneasy. Church leaders who continue such ministerial traditions pay dearly.”

     The clergy as entertainer is judged based on the criteria with which other, more professional, entertainers are judged: box office, ratings and likeability, translated as bodies in seats generating a sufficient amount of laughter and good cheer. That can be both a difficult task to one unsuited for it and an inappropriate one for the person who studied and trained to preach G-d’s word. Certainly, a pleasing, pleasurable presentation helps deliver the message more effectively, but when the style becomes the substance, much is lost. A story that enhances the idea can have a powerful impact, but when the audience craves – and hears – only stories, the message (if there is one) becomes diluted.

     The writer: “In the early 2000s, the advisory committee of my small congregation in Massachusetts told me to keep my sermons to 10 minutes, tell funny stories and leave people feeling great about themselves. The unspoken message in such instructions is clear: give us the comforting, amusing fare we want or we’ll get our spiritual leadership from someone else.” That is pressure that only an extended (permanent ?) vacation can relieve. “Congregations that make such demands seem not to realize that most clergy don’t sign up to be soothsayers or entertainers. Pastors believe they’re called to shape lives for the better, and that involves helping people learn to do what’s right in life, even when what’s right is also difficult.”

     The other article was even more threatening. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/nyregion/02burnout.html?pagewanted=1)

    “The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.

    Public health experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity have become so unhealthy and unhappy.

   But while research continues, a growing number of health care experts and religious leaders have settled on one simple remedy that has long been a touchy subject with many clerics: taking more time off.”

      The writer avers that there are clergymen who have always been averse to vacations, figuring that the Lord never takes a day off, so how could they ? I am not one of them, but I do know some of them. The favorable way of approaching their reluctance not to be seen is to attribute it to their dedication, but there is an unfavorable way of approaching it too, and ultimately they might be cheating themselves, their families and their congregations of the full value of their personalities and services.

       Interestingly, the notion of the well-earned vacation was quite familiar to the Torah giants of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The leaders of famous towns and yeshivot (R. Chaim Soloveitchik, R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, to name just two) and Chasidic Rebbis by the dozens would descend on the spa towns and mountain retreats of Switzerland, Hungary and elsewhere for the month of August, if not longer (corresponding to the time period after Tish’a B’Av until sometime in Elul). The change of scenery was itself invigorating, and the camaraderie developed between the distinguished vacationers – who, due to the communications system and travel opportunities then extant, otherwise had little personal interaction – enriched their spiritual lives as well.

      I have come to realize the sublime advantages of the occasional get-away. There are very few 24/7 jobs today; the clergy (here, I can only speak for the Rabbinate) is one of them. This is an observation, not a complaint. The Rabbi is always on call – crisis, question, comment, presence. If the average person works five days a week, that itself is tantamount to 104 days off during the year, or more than three months, and that is before actual vacations are factored. The Rabbi has none of that, and the rest days for other people (Shabbat, Sunday) are work days for him; for me, oddly, Mondays are just as busy, if not busier. So, too, there are no set hours in the rabbinate, and early mornings and late nights are relatively normal. No wonder I have heard that Rabbi Shlomo Riskin has referred to rabbinical vacations as the “holy of holies,” never to be encroached upon.

      Interestingly, I was informed by some non-Orthodox Rabbis several years ago that the non-Orthodox movements have institutionalized the weekly “day off” for the rabbi, whether Monday or Wednesday – whatever day of his choice. Unless a member actually dies, the rabbi is not to be disturbed. I informed them that I did not see how that could work in an Orthodox context, because we go to shul AM and PM, and once there, we gladly respond to the issues, needs and questions on people’s minds. (Told, casually, “well, don’t go,” I remember responding, “I have to go anyway, to daven!”) The Times article also notes that the Conservatives now recommend three or four month [sabbaticals] for every three or four years of service. Interesting.

      My teacher and mentor Rabbi Berel Wein once wrote that the Rabbi’s vacations should be “long enough to be meaningful to the rabbi and his family but not too long that the people realize they can get along quite well without him.” That is a hard balance to strike. A simcha missed can never be replaced, and a funeral missed can never be re-attended. That is the downside of any time away. But in Israel for the last few weeks, I have been privileged to see many members of our synagogue family, offering comfort at moments of sorrow and celebrating together at joyous events (Bar Mitzvahs and weddings). To me, it is a special thrill to see them, and their children and grandchildren, in Israel and to join in their festivities and milestones. Most of my colleagues here have similar experiences and the life events that mark our lives therefore continue apace, and appropriately so.  

        None of the above should be construed in any way as a complaint, because I have been blessed (as I know some of my colleagues have not been) with congregations that were (are) quite understanding of the rewards of vacation despite the occasional costs to them (and, I hope, never too eager to see me leave).

        Vacation is free time to pursue endeavors that time simply does not allow the rest of the year but that assuredly benefits the rabbi in the conduct of his rabbinate. In addition to learning Torah, I am able to recommend four books that I read this summer, somewhat diverse, all fascinating: “Why Jews are Liberals” (by Norman Podhoretz), “God According to God” (by the physicist Dr. Gerald Schroeder), “The Prime Ministers” (by Yehuda Avner, a remarkable, riveting book that at 703 pages is actually too short) and “The Great Money Binge: Spending Our Way to Socialism” (by former Wall Street Journal columnist George Melloan), a dash of needed cold water on a hot summer day.

        With the Yamim Noraim “early” this year, right after Labor Day, preparations for those days soon after my return have already begun. In the meantime, nofesh is indispensable for the nefesh, for me and for you.