Dayenu, Indeed

I was hoping for an inspiring, enlightening (maybe even controversial?) second seder. Unlike the first seder which was attended by 44 family members at a rented hall, with 13 kids younger than 12 years old, our second seder was at home, only six of us, and no youngins. In my family the first seder is typically about re-connecting with cousins who we haven't seen in a long time - and this year it was a very long time, five years because of the pandemic - and it's all about the youngest kids. We try to make them the focus, singing the songs and playing up the mystery and magic of the rituals - drops of wine to signify the plagues, opening the door for the prophet Elijah to enter the room, he's here! he's here! - because doing it can make seder memories that last a lifetime. But the second seder, that's the one for adult reflection and discussion. Or so I was hoping.

As I say, it was going to be an unusually small second seder for us: Just my wife and me, my sister-in-law, our eldest daughter (30), our youngest daughter (19) and her boyfriend, and my mother-in-law. An opportunity to do something a little different, I was thinking. I'm a (small d) democrat and this year I'm going to show my democratic bona fides (which feels important to do) by opening the floor to discussion when we get to the four questions. Actually, the seder is not a democratic process at all. Quite the opposite. There's a leader (me) who puts the assembled gathering through their paces as dictated by the agenda set forth in the Haggadah. It's regimented, first you do this, then you do that, then you say that etc. etc. Highly scripted and stage managed. There's actually very little room for sharing thoughts and exploring ideas in any depth - impatience is the real order of the day. But the Haggadah is actually just a guide book. It's not holy scripture (although it includes some). It's an anthology of texts and prayers written in Hebrew and Aramaic, compiled over centuries, designed to aid in telling the biblical story of the Israelite's miraculous deliverance from slavery. There's nothing sacrilegious about deviating and trying to be a little inventive at a seder.  

Context matters. This year has been a particularly difficult year for the Jewish community. The story recounted at Passover challenges us to reflect on the redemption of captives and meaning of freedom, a theme that has added poignancy when an estimated 133 of our brethren remain in captivity in Gaza, Israel is at war, and when the Jewish diaspora is on fire with hateful student protests being leveraged by terrorist sympathizers calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. We live in an unprecedented time (at least in my lifetime) of anxiety and uncertainty. To my mind this means that there's plenty on Jewish minds and in Jewish hearts to talk about at the seder table. So, prior to our guests arriving, I tell my wife that after saying the blessing on the wine and performing the first brief set of rituals, when we get to the four questions and the telling of the story, instead of reading the text, I'm going to open up the table for wide-ranging discussion. I'm going to ask how people are feeling about what's happening on university campuses, or the situation in the Middle East and how they are feeling about the challenge of supporting Israel while navigating morally nuanced and complex historical issues. I have some related thoughts I want to share about what the Haggadah says about the four sons, I tell her. She seems on board with the plan. Even says she will share something she read online written by a local rabbi about a 'fifth son'.  

The four sons referred to in the Haggadah always made me think of my four daughters. Of our four daughters, three live in Montreal, two of them were at our seder. The one who didn't attend could have, but chose not to. I've mentioned before her struggle to reconcile her Jewish identity with her sympathies for people whom she believes are being oppressed. This daughter connects in my mind with the child the Haggadah calls 'wicked'. Of course, I don't for a second believe that my daughter is 'wicked'. In fact she's exactly the opposite, she's deeply sensitive and caring. The Haggadah characterizes the wicked child, not in the sense of 'evil', but more akin to rebellious, saying 'what do these rituals mean to you, and by saying 'you' the wicked son separates himself'. It's a scornful rejection of tradition, a sense that the seder holds no personal meaning to him. He's 'wicked' in the sense of being self-centred, which is actually a description of most typical teenagers, and someone who doesn't have the temperament to open him/herself up to meaning beyond the immediate and individual. The Haggadah tells us that in response to his obstinance and rebellion we must 'blunt his teeth', an opaque metaphor that may be interpreted as finding ways to soften his edge by making him feel more secure and welcome within the fold of family and tradition. Our daughter has always seen herself as the black sheep of the family. She  gets easily triggered when the topic of discussion makes her feel uncomfortable, so we avoid political topics for fear of angering or offending her. It never fails to amaze me how relevant and insightful our traditional texts can be. Unfortunately, our daughter's absence from this year's seder, her choice to separate herself, won't allow us the chance to test the Haggadah's remedy for reaching her. 

But it was how the Haggadah talks about the wise child that I wanted to talk about with our seder guests. The wise child asks details about the specific meaning of the laws of Passover observance: “What are the statutes and laws God has commanded you?” to which we respond with explanation of specific laws and customs of the seder. The wise child takes an active engaged interest in the rituals and story. She does the exact opposite of the wicked child. I was hoping that our seder table would be a gathering of the 'wise' in this sense, after all, we're all adults. So after reciting the blessings, as planned, when we got to the four questions, I broached the topic of the wise child to open the table up for discussion. I joked that now we know why so many Jews become lawyers (like our second daughter incidentally), because wisdom in the Haggadah is defined as a having an interest in law. Silence in response. 

"What I mean is, I find it interesting, this implication that wisdom is the acknowledgement of rules, boundaries of comportment and behaviour. In my mind, given what's happening in the world, it relates to the boundaries of war, and in particular the moral complexity of the conflict Israel is fighting in Gaza." More blank faces, silence. 

"What I mean is, that unless we acknowledge there are limits to the way we engage our enemies in order to defeat them, we run the risk of descending to their level of immorality and lawlessness, and becoming no better than them. The ends cannot be separate from the means." Now I think I'm being provocative. Crickets.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, our eldest daughter pipes up. "What if the laws are unjust. Shouldn't they be broken?"

"Yes, of course. But within boundaries," I answer. "If you are breaking what you perceive to be an unjust law, it should be motivated by the desire to create better, more just laws. Then you are doing it, not for destructive purposes, but for constructive ones, to make the community better and stronger and more united. So although your action might be disruptive, you're not like the wicked child, you're not separating yourself, you're actually trying to bring people together."

Now I'm getting excited. Maybe someone is going to relate this to the student protests taking place at Columbia University. Are they doing it for destructive or constructive purposes? How should we be viewing these protests? Why, I've been asking myself, is it that these pro-Palestine protests are most active at Ivy League schools? Does it have to do with the particular privilege (and feelings of guilt) of those particular student bodies? Maybe the conversation will veer into the important subject of freedom of speech, and when the line is crossed into hate speech?  

But no, there's just silence. Nobody has anything else to contribute to the discussion. Meanwhile, I look at my wife who is slumped impatiently in her chair. Her message is clear, get on with it before the food gets cold. I'm feeling the pressure. 

One last try. "We don't have to talk about this. We can talk about anything, whatever is on your mind lately." Now the simple child crosses my mind: What is this?

More silence.

Message received. People want to eat. They want me to get on with the last couple of blessings. So I do, in record time. I don't want our guests to suffer hunger.

We eat. The meal is spent talking about how cute cats can be (among a host of other inane topics). It feels like a regular weekly family dinner. Except I'm feeling dejected and disappointed. I don't talk. I'm angry that no one had the wherewithal or desire to bring something beyond cat-talk to the seder table. Nothing to make this event feel momentous and significant. They didn't want to think any more about the captives held in Gaza, the soldiers dying and wounded defending Israel, the ruin and death of innocents in Gaza, the student protests taking place across the continent tinged with anti-Semitism. It seems that everyone is just feeling exhausted from all the exhausting news. It seems that all they want to feel is some semblance of routine and ordinariness again. Good food and cat-talk is enough. 

Dayenu, indeed.

OJ

"Trump is for a lot of white people what OJ’s acquittal was to a lot of Black folks – you know it’s wrong, but it feels good." - Barack Obama

In honour of the death of OJ, I repost my blog post from 2021.

 https://therentcollector.blogspot.com/2021/03/floyd-and-oj-one-victim-one-perpetrator.html?m=1

Sam Harris

This week I listened to the first hour of Sam Harris's latest podcast with Douglas Murray and Joseph Szeps, the part available on YouTube. I've always found Harris to be a thoughtful and articulate public intellectual on a host of subjects, although admittedly, I've never read any of his books. A neuroscientist, he came to prominence as a professed atheist, a moral rationalist and a promoter of clear thought through the regular practice of meditation. Lately, I've been particularly interested in how he has been thinking about the war in Gaza and the moral quagmire Israel finds itself in while prosecuting the conflict. His position has been consistent and steadfast throughout. He supports Israel unequivocally. But its not because it's Israel ie. not because he's Jewish and it's a Jewish state. He says he'd support Denmark if they were the country engaged in this conflict. He supports Israel because he believes that the battle they are fighting is for civilization. It's a battle against Jihadism, a religious death cult, and an ideology that is contrary to any basic moral standard of human decency. He argues that this is the correct way to view an opposition who straps explosive devices to their children to turn them into suicide bombers, and who teaches children to die as martyrs as the ultimate heroism. Harris is incensed by the way 'supposedly educated and smart' westerners have lost their moral bearings by siding with such people. In the first 10 minutes of the podcast he summarizes his position succinctly. Perhaps most surprising to my ears is when he compares Hamas to the Nazis. He argues that if we can legitimately justify the bombing of Dresden, which killed more than 30,000 ordinary German citizens, surely the killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians is justified, because Hamas is worse than the Nazis. The Nazis did not weaponize their citizens by using them as human shields. They did not use hospitals and elementary schools as rocket-launch sites. They did not build tunnels to turn residential areas into military infrastructure. It appears that for Harris, with western civilization at stake, any means of defeating Hamas, no matter what the cost, is warranted. The World Central Kitchen attack was a tragic mistake, he says. In war there are always tragic mistakes. 

I agree with much of what Harris says, and my support of Israel is as steadfast as his. Hamas must be defeated for all the reasons he describes in terms of the ideology they represent and threat to western values. They cannot be permitted to survive in any functional way. But unlike Harris I also support the war because I support Israel. I believe Hamas must be defeated because they are a threat to the Jewish state. This is an existential war for Israel. Where I differ most with Harris is the way he conflates Hamas with the Palestinian people. He argues that Palestinians support Hamas and the barbaric acts they committed on October 7th. This is indisputable based on recent polling. But reliable polls taken just prior to October 7th in Gaza indicated that Hamas was extremely unpopular. It's not unexpected that during a conflict, and in this case one in which you are pummelled into homelessness and starvation, the population would rally around their perceived 'defenders'. What we know about Hamas is that they were feared by Gazans and ruled without election and with an iron fist. They corruptly deprived Gaza of resources for almost two decades, and used whatever they could steal to turn the territory into a military facility and to line their own pockets. We also know that Hamas is a proxy for Iran. Under such circumstances, any reasonable person needs to question the extent to which ordinary Palestinians can be held culpable for the actions of Hamas. Is the analogy to Germany during World War 2 even remotely applicable here? Hitler and the Nazis were broadly popular with Germans and they actively supported the war effort enthusiastically at all levels of society. The Nazi government marshalled all of the powers of the state to prosecute their war of expansion. In the very last stage of the war, when the Wehrmacht was in shambles and Berlin encircled, the Nazis called upon the Volkssturm, the ragtag national citizen militia comprised of ordinary citizens, from high-school age to retirees, to fight the Red Army in the streets, and they did. The culpability of everyday Germans is inarguable. How can one use the same standard of culpability for what is happening to the population of Gaza? 

But there's another comment made by Harris and Murray which has been accepted as a given, but with which I take issue: That the IDF (and by extension Israel) is held to a higher moral standard than other countries (hence there is anti-Semitism at play). They cite other horrific conflicts and attrocities taking place around the world that are not given anywhere near the same scrutiny as Gaza. That there is greater scrutiny of this conflict is undeniable. But in my view it's for a host of reasons that make this conflict unusual and one-of-a-kind, that has nothing to do with any moral double-standard or anti-Semitism. Israel possesses unique geographical, religious and historical significance that merits unique international attention. This conflict is not a civil war in Syria or Sudan. In the west we simply have no political reason to care as much about those types of conflicts regardless of the attrocities being committed, especially when they are in Africa. Conflicts on continental Europe are always of greater political concern. For example, we have a lot more reason to care about the war of aggression waged by Putin against Ukraine. We were properly outraged by Putin's barbaric targeting of apartment buildings, theaters and hospitals in Mariupol. Remember how we cared about the war in the Balkans and were horrified by the genocidal slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995? The Serbian perpetrators were doggedly pursued and eventually brought to the ICJ (International Court of Justice). No Jews involved there. Israel is subject to the same standard of behaviour during wartime as any other signatory to international treaties and conventions. But one also has to consider that the Palestinians are unique. They have been wards of the international community since 1948 and have special status at the UN as multi-generational refugees. The Palestinians have waged a successful campaign for decades to situate themselves in the global conscience as a symbol of 'neo-colonial' injustice and victimhood, falsely I believe. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not about moral double-standards or anti-Semitism in my view. The global reaction we are witnessing is largely attributable to the unique and longstanding political aspects it engenders.  

I want to be clear. I don’t for a second believe that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. If there is a genocide it’s being committed by Hamas, as they weaponize the Palestinian civilian population, using the lives of innocents as a tactic of war to demonize Israel. It’s diabolical, evil, and it’s working. People are not placing blame where it needs to go, on Hamas. And for any thinking person the tactic would signal how necessary defeating Hamas is, not just for Israel but also for the Palestinians. And yes there are mistakes that happen in war. Israel killed three hostages in a tragic mistake. But every possible effort must be made to respect certain moral boundaries when waging any conflict. We cannot accept that the ends always justify the means and ‘anything goes’. 

Solar Eclipse - April 8, 2024

The big news today is a solar eclipse,

And where the viewing is optimal.

The sun interrupted like a sentence elipsis,

By a rare occurrence celestial.

It won't happen again in North America,

For another twenty-two years.

Get special lenses to protect your retinas,

To watch it with nothing to fear.

The Moon crossing the face of the Sun, 

As Earth's darkness reaches totality.

Like that plague in Egypt, before the first born sons,

Met with their ordained fatality.

Why am I feeling so ambivalent,  

About something this richly mythical?

A once-in-a-lifetime without equivalent, 

Event that is cosmically cyclical?

This storied sign of impending calamity,

Misfortune and natural disruption.

It's not as though the breadth of humanity, 

Is unfamiliar with grief and corruption.

The moon that will cast us all in shadow,

Briefly extinguishing daylight, 

Is the moon that reflects the sun's luminous glow,

In the blackness of every night. 

You might call the moon two-faced,

Which reminds me of each of us,

How we treat each other and are disgraced,

And will soon return to dust. 

Every second is one-of-a-kind,

Not something we will witness again,

To the darkness inside we're habitually blind,

Regardless of heavenly omens.

So I won't watch from the roof of my home,

Or from some other high-up joint,

I'll spend the eclipse writing a poem,

To try to make a lasting point.

Ah More!

Dawn less spree,

Dawn less spree,

Twos key pass par laze you,

Say four may, Say four may!

Dawn no core,

Dawn no core,

Twos key pass dawn liquor,

Ah more, Ah more!

Overheard

Q: What is the difference between funny and smart?

A: There is no difference.

War thoughts

My last post about an inflection point almost intuits that the World Central Kitchen (WCK) disaster was about to happen. Sometimes you can feel something in the air. Not that you know for certain something is going to happen, but the trend lines are there. There was something about the way this war was progressing that worried me. My concern was that until this moment the IDF still had the credibility of making the self-defense argument, even with scores of thousands of Palestinian civilian casualties, because Hamas was using civilians as weapons of war. I argued that any sort of famine would transgress that moral boundary, because the obligations change from an active engagement combat circumstance to a prisoner of war situation, and as such, the IDF becomes responsible for ensuring the basic human needs of the civilian population. My worst fears were realized. The WCK catastrophe, although certainly unintended, severely damages any credibility the IDF had when they claimed to be taking precautions and following international law and conventions of war. The details that are starting to emerge appear damning, and I fear it's going to get even worse. The 'fog of war' is no excuse. Apologies don't cut it. Unless heads roll, and ideally Netanyahu's would be top of my list, Israel is in deep trouble on multiple levels. The trust deficit, both domestically and internationally, is reaching a critical point. The passionate protests we've been seeing in Jerusalem in the last 24 hours (with violence surprisingly erupting) that demand his resignation suggest a lot of Israelis agree with me. I hope it has an impact so that this listing ship of state can get back on course. None of this fundamentally changes my support for Israel or my view that the war is justified, especially as long as there are hostages involved. But operational carelessness are undermining the goals. It's hard to see any path forward unless something changes.

I had other thoughts this week about war, namely Russia and Ukraine. Since the start of that war more than two years ago (if you don't count the invasion of Crimea in 2014), I've been trying to find an intellectual framework for Putin's aggression that makes sense of it. Some people have characterized it as an imperial war, Putin's desire to re-make the old Soviet Union, to re-establish a Russian Empire. Others have characterized it as a vanity project for Putin who fashions himself as a modern day Peter The Great. They've focused on his mythological view of himself and his desire for an historical legacy. Still others have taken a more pragmatic approach and see the war as a political move to divert the attention of everyday Russians away from his economic failures in favour of patriotism and a quasi-religious Nationalism. Of course, all of these perspectives probably play some role in Putin's motivation. No doubt it's changed over time, as the war shifted from being a lightning strike against Kiev in the first few days of the invasion, which failed miserably, and became a war of attrition. But I'm starting to think that Alexei Navalny's view was always the right one (even before the war). The war is about class warfare. It's about a monarchical oligarchy trying to protect its power and privilege. It's a throwback to 18th-19th century Russian aristocracy. The one that was overthrown by the Bolsheviks. The war being waged is not actually Russia against Ukraine, in reality it's Putin against his own underclass. The tip off for me is that Putin wears a business suit, while Zelensky, in his role as Ukraine's commander in chief, wears army fatigues. The symbolism is unmistakable. This week, with a stroke of the pen sitting at his desk, Putin called up an additional 150,000 conscripts to prepare for the meat-grinder of Ukraine. According to a US intelligence report an estimated 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in Ukraine to the end of 2023. If accurate, the figure would represent 87 percent of the roughly 360,000 troops Russia had before the war. I wonder how long Russians are prepared to accept this until they reach their breaking point.

Dying as a Political Tool

It feels like an inflection point. After Chuck Schumer's unfathomable call for elections in Israel to oust Netanyahu, the rising tensions between Biden and Bibi that have been building for weeks finally came to a head with the US abstention of the UN Security Council ceasefire resolution vote. Hamas must be very encouraged that their campaign of Palestinian self-flagellation is winning the day. Western leaders are talking about recognizing a Palestinian State - although it's hard to imagine what that would accomplish - and US Vice-President Harris has talked about further consequences if Israel conducts operations in Rafah, the last Gaza stronghold of Hamas. Israel argues that it needs to go into Rafah to finish the job of eliminating Hamas. Meanwhile, northern Gaza is on the brink of what has been called the worst famine in modern human history. According to some reports, by May up to 680,000 Gazans will be at risk. This represents the largest famine since Somalia in 2011 when approximately 450,000 starved. I wonder how many Palestinian women and children Hamas counted on dying before enough international pressure would come to bear on Israel to force them into retreat. Dying can be a powerful political tool, especially in the age of social media. 

We are taught that we must not stand idly by and watch innocent people die if we have the ability to do something about it. It's a basic moral imperative. But what do you do when bad actors place others intentionally in harm's way to protect themselves? It's undeniable that Hamas is responsible for the catastrophe currently befalling the people of Gaza. In their strategy of assymetrical warfare, it's undeniable that Hamas has used the entire population of Gaza to shield themselves from Israel's superior military power. It's undeniable that their only hope of 'success' was for massive numbers of innocent Gazans to die and the world to be outraged against Israel. They view all Palestinians as not merely expendable, but as their main weapon. They call them 'a nation of martyrs'. But Hamas's responsibility for wanting and engineering the deaths of thousands of their own people can't negate the moral imperative of others to spare innocent lives if they can. Those of us watching the catastrophe of Gaza have to agonizingly hold two conflicting moral principles in our minds at the same time. One that demands evil to be eradicated in self-defense, and the second not to kill innocents in the process. In a case when one of the parties has weaponized the death of their own civillians as central to their strategy, contrary to every accepted norm and convention of warfare, we are forced to ask, which must take precedence, and at what point should that precedence shift, if ever? At what point must my self-defense take a backseat to sparing the lives of others? 

We've been told that the IDF has respected, as much as possible, international military norms and conventions in their rules of engagement in Gaza. We've been told that whenever possible, in an impossible setting of urban guerilla warfare, they have done whatever they could to warn civilians to get out of harm's way before taking action. I am confident that this is the case. I am also confident that Hamas is doing everything possible to undermine Israel's efforts, and that this accounts for the vast majority of civilian Palestinian casualties. But famine changes the calculus. Ensuring the adequate supply of basic human needs is essential. In this regard, the Palestinian population must be viewed like prisoners of war and treated as such. If the IDF is doing anything to make sure famine is avoided, they need to tell the world about it. If they are being hindered in that effort by Hamas we need to know about it. Right now, to many of us, it still looks like what the IDF is engaged in is justifiable self-defense. If there is a famine, it won't look that way anymore.

Bank Balance Number

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

Don't know where it comes from,

The money just shows up,

Like a kid who rings the bell,

That I forgot about.

Stocks that I once purchased,

Mutual fund dividends,

All sorts of investments,

That I will never spend. 

My bank balance number,

Always seems to grow, 

My financial advisor loves,

The size of my portfolio.

I got more money,

Than I could ever blow,

Doesn't need much tending, 

Like weeds it seems to grow.

Sometimes I ask myself,

How far I should go,

To keep my money safe,

From all you average joes.

They all want to take some,

Convince me just to give it,

But it's my money, all mine,

And they can just forget it.

I got more money,

Than I could ever blow,

I'm just gonna keep it,

Watch it as it grows.

My bank balance number,

Always seems to grow, 

My financial advisor loves,

The size of my portfolio.

Original

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

I'm thinking about the unlikelihood of life,

yours, mine, anyones, 

looking at the latest gossamer images 

of spidery spinning galaxies

from the James Webb Space Telescope

light traveling 13 billion years 

to my eyes

and mind;

the further we see into the past

the less we understand

about how we emerged 

out of this cocoon of inanimate 

cosmos.

Both my father and mother are dead now.

It's as if they never existed.

I have some photos

of them

light exposed on film

chemically set to glossy paper

making patterns,

and of course as further proof

of their existence 

there's me

and neural sparks 

of memory.

I am original.

Me and my consciousness 

like an ocean boat 

cutting a wake 

from one island in time  

to the distant next

awake

soon to disappear.

They Used To Sing of Love

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

I knew a man without a name,

I met him on the street,

He handed me a business card,

And offered me a seat.

Said he'd led a different life,

A hundred years ago,

He could tell me stories,

'Bout things I didn't know.

I told him I was listening,

Said I was mostly ears,

The spinning world is dizzying me,

I've got so many fears.

He told me all that mattered,

In all the years he's seen.

Was people telling stories, 

Singing songs they sing.

They used to sing of love,

In a better time.

They used to sing of broken hearts,

As if it was a crime.

Now they sing of peace,

Cause times have got so bad.

And love's a distant memory,

Like good times that we had.

 

One kind will tell you how to hate,

Others who to blame.

Others show you who to fear,

Said the man without a name.

A man don't need very much,

He said with a wry smile,

Someone to tell his stories,

And sit with him a while. 

Not Alone

 CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

Written by Moss & Rotchin

There was one who said that she felt lonely,

There was one who begged me to come home,

There was one who told me that she loved me,

And I told her she was not alone, she was not alone.

There are times things just don't seem right,

There are times you feel it in your bones,

And you know there's something that she's hiding,

When she speaks you hear it in her tone.

In her eyes I saw what she was thinking,

In her eyes I saw she wasn't true,

That was when I felt my heart was sinking,

I could tell she saw just what I knew, saw just what I knew.

 

There was one who said that she felt lonely,

There was one who begged me to come home,

There was one who told me that she loved me,

And I told her she was not alone.

Always Between

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

I've got me a job,

I guess it's okay,

Don't care very much,

But it's worth the pay.

I've got me a girl,

Yeah, she's alright,

Watch movies, have dinner, 

Almost never fight.

Sometimes I think, 

There's another way,

Choices I could make,

Before I go gray.

Take myself down,

A different road,

Where the sky is wide,

The air not cold.

Ain't as young as I was,

Or as old as I'll be,

It feels somehow, 

Like I'm always between.

My girl ran away,

Took part of me,

All she left behind, 

A mountain of lonely.

Used to have buddies,

Shared a game and a beer,

They're off doing something,

Or so it appears.

My folks worry 'bout me,

Say my life's a dead-end,

I'm happy they're talking,

Since their marriage did end.

I may not go far,

Whatever 'far' means,

I'm heading somewhere,

I'm always between.

Ain't as young as I was,

Or as old as I'll be,

It feels somehow, 

Like I'm always between.

A State For The Jews

A state for the Jews, or a Jewish state? This dilemma, which has been at the heart of Israel's identity for at least the last 40 years, is coming to a head. Reframed, the question is really about whether Israel is to be a democracy or a theocracy. It has been moving toward theocracy for political reasons at least since the mid-1980s, as the secular right-wing Likud Party saw that the only way it could maintain its stranglehold on power was to consolidate an alliance with the religious parties. Today, Israel is a divided nation, as divided as it has ever been in its 75 year history. And now, the war with Hamas has brought those divisions to the fore with a new move to eliminate the exemption of Haredi military service. Some points to keep in mind... 

Point 1: Israel was never meant to be the guardian of Orthodox Judaism. Quite the opposite. There were 37 signatories to Israel's Declaration of Independence, and only three were rabbis. The signatories were chosen to represent a broad cross-section of the yishuv (the pre-Independence settlement Jewish society). There is no overt mention of God in the document (unlike the US Declaration of Independence which mentions God in the first paragraph). There was some debate surrounding whether or not to include it. Most of the signatories were strongly against any reference to God, but they finally settled on including the euphemistic term 'Rock of Israel' near the end of the document. They rationalized that secular Jews would understand that phrase in the literal sense as the Land of Israel. The Zionist movement(s) that inspired the creation and building of the modern State was decidedly secular, beginning with Herzl who envisioned a country where Jewish culture could flourish together with European heritage within a society that balances the best of Capitalism tempered by elements of Socialism. Religion did not factor, except in the sense that freedom of religion had to be a basic right. Herzl wrote, "Matters of faith were once and for all excluded from public influence...Whether anyone sought religious devotion in the synagogue, in the church, in the mosque, in the art museum, or in a philharmonic concert, did not concern society. That was his [own] private affair."

Point 2: In 1948 the exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox was justified by the need to restore the Torah world that was destroyed in the Holocaust. At the time it made sense on a couple of levels. The Haredim of this era were a relatively small minority of the country. In subsequent decades, the explosion of the birth rate in the religious community combined with their aliyah (immigration to Israel), and the comparative collapse of secular births together with their emigration from Israel, means that one in four young Israelis will be ultra-Orthodox by the end of this decade.

Point 3: Military service in Israel is a central factor of cohesion in Israeli society, reflecting a sense of civic responsibility and creating networks of lifelong interpersonal bonds. It's commonly seen as the great social equalizer, of the rich and the poor, of cultural groups and traditions, of the Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Yemeni. The Haredi exemption did the opposite. It split society in two, creating a division of two main specialized classes of citizens, as it were, distorting the social contract of Israeli society. The exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox generated a two-tier society in which haredim were seen as 'privileged', and secular citizens who served in the military increasingly grew to resent them for it. There is the sense that society's burdens are not equally shared, with secular Israelis paying the heavier price. As it was put in a recent article,"...the time has come to strip the Israeli flak jacket from the haredim..."

Point 4: As Israel has become more religious and politically dominated by religious movements - who themselves have become more extreme as exemplified by the push to expand settlement of biblical Judea and Samaria - it has become more alienated from the secular Jewish diaspora. In recent decades Israel has trumpeted its economic independence and strength, at the same time as it has become increasingly isolated within the international community, and direct involvement of the United States in the Middle East has receded. The traditional alliance between Israel and the United States is fraying, and we can expect it will continue to fray as long as successive Israeli (right-wing/religious) governments define themselves in terms that are antagonistic to the west. Some don't think it matters, or that it's temporary. I don't believe it's temporary, nor do I believe tiny Israel can afford to lose the support of the secular Jewish diaspora.

Israel continues shifting away from an open secular democracy toward a socially fragmented, institutionally atrophied, theocracy at its peril. It's splitting the country apart. The so-called Judicial reform proposed last summer was part of it. Israel is at a crossroads. Hopefully, the post-war period will result in a political and cultural reckoning that will re-calibrate the country's navigation system toward the secular democracy and home to all Jews that it was always meant to be.   

Riding a Bike

We live in a constant state of anticipation. Always waiting for the resolution of conflict. Our minds and bodies exist in a permanently agitated condition, in the throes of omnipresent anxiety and duress, and we don't even realize it, because we are not in the moment. 

It's hoping for a temporary ceasefire in the Middle East that will bring hostages home. 

It's waiting on the next judicial decision in any one of the number of cases against Donald Trump. What it will mean for the future of democracy, and maybe even the world.

It's the news, the notifications, the messages bombarding us on our phones. 

It's thinking about what others think. Caring about what others care about.

It's the obsession with things that are beyond our control. The anxiety of the unknowable future.

I'm thinking about how two of my children never learned to drive a car. One of my children never learned to ride a bicycle. When she was in her late teens I tried to teach her, but it was very difficult to the point of frustration. Like learning language, riding a bike seems to be much easier when you are younger. She eventually gave up trying. Perhaps my kids (they're adults now) will never know the feeling of mastering a skill to such an extent that it feels so natural they don't think about it. When people use the expression, 'you never forget, it's like riding a bike' they get it wrong. Riding a bike has nothing to do with memory. Riding a bike is the opposite of memory, it's un-remembering what you've worked so hard to learn, until the point that no thought whatsoever is involved. It becomes a skill that your body just 'knows' by feeling, your senses are calibrated precisely to achieve balance through acceleration and momentum. It's what your mind and body feel like when they're in the moment, the barrier between oneself and the world outside has fallen away, and you are inseparable from the forces that govern your movement. In fact, if you were to 'think' about riding a bike while you were doing it, the chances of faltering probably increase. It doesn't mean you don't have to pay attention. Of course you do. If you didn't pay attention to the road you'd hit the curb, or god forbid, a pedestrian. But what are you actually paying attention to? Not the mechanics of riding/driving. Not your body or thoughts in action. You are paying attention to the moment and your surroundings as you move through space and time. Your mind is not wandering off. You are in the moment so much so that your emotions and thoughts are untethered to anything but the moment itself. It's the mind-body 'problem' resolving into balance.  

I am reminded of the Zen-Buddhist teacher Alan Watts who described one indispensable qualification needed by a person to comprehend the path of Zen, "...he must understand his own culture so thoroughly that he is no longer swayed by its premises unconsciously...He must be free of the itch to justify himself."

But back to bike riding. I get a kick out of seeing those serious helmeted cycling dads, clad in stretchy, sleek, fashionable body-hugging apparel, riding on their $20,000 titanium racers up and down Mount-Royal. I respect their desire to keep in shape, and cycling is great heart-health exercise, but do they have to look like they're competing for a gold medal? I was a pretty serious cyclist myself in my late teens. Bought a state-of-the-art 18-gear racer and went on two or three day cycling trips with a buddy through the Green Mountains in Vermont or the Adirondacks in New York. That was forty years ago and a phase that didn't last long. A few years ago while cleaning out the garage I came across my old bike. The chain was rusty and the wheels were flat. It looked decrepit. There was another adult racer in the garage that must have belonged to one of my kids. It was driveable. So, unhelmeted, I took it for a quick spin. It was a warm sunny day. Instantly, it all came back to me. I don't mean how to ride, of course, that did. I mean the feeling of being at one with my body and the wind, the untethered feeling of serenity and careless joy. 

What does riding a bike have to do with the hostages in Gaza, American politics and the future? No idea. Probably nothing. But does it really matter?  

Zen

I heard a Buddhist 

       once give a talk about Zen;

not a word of truth.

Up is Down, Down is Up

This week we had the murder of Alexey Navalny, Russian anti-corruption crusader and leader of the opposition against Putin and his tyrannical oligarchy. Putin killed him, either by direct order or by gradually poisoning him and then sending him to a brutal Siberian penal colony. In response to Navalny's murder, Donald Trump, who is a sociopathic narcissist incapable of empathy, sympathy or even seeing anything from anyone else's point of view, commented on Navalny's 'sudden' death that it made him more aware of how America was corrupt and in 'decline'. What he meant was that he sees himself as being 'persecuted' by the American legal system after two recent massive monetary civil case judgments against him, and two major federal indictments. Of course, the comparison to Navalny is absurd. Trump is an adjudged rapist and white-collar criminal who lives in a multi-million dollar Palm Beach estate. He is the exact opposite of a corruption fighter like Navalny, whose only crime was speaking out against Putin. Trump is using the news of Navalny's death to impugn American rule of law. In Russia, where using the term 'war' to describe the war in Ukraine is 'illegal', there is no rule of law, only rule by an all-powerful tyrant. To suggest that the rule of law in America bears any resemblance to what passes for a legal system in Russia is Orwellian. Navalny's persecution bears zero similarity to Trump's criminality, it's the opposite. By erasing the distinction, Trump wants to subvert the meaning of right and wrong and turn America into a Russia-style tyranny.

The world in which we live, the shape of reality, is constructed from words. Change the meaning of the words and the construction shifts and potentially collapses. It's that fragile.

We learned the truism of the importance of words, that they construct our world, in our biblical reckoning of how the world was spoken into existence. "And God said 'Let there be light / God saw that the light was good / And He separated the light from the darkness." Spoken words bring the physical world into existence, and the words embody meaning that separates opposites. When words lose their capacity to distinguish (light and dark), the foundational meaning on which the world is constructed collapses.

In his novel 1984 Orwell updated the idea when he described how the essence of (Soviet-type) totalitarian control over people hinged on subverting the dilalectical principle of meaning that undergirds civilization, with phrases like "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” If words mean their opposite, there is effectively no meaning at all. In physical terms it's like a negative and positive canceling out coherence and truth.  

These are some of the opposite-equivalences we are experiencing in the public informational sphere that are intended to cancel out meaning: 

Self-Defense is Genocide

Insurrection is Patriotism

Criminality is Innocence

Freedom is Subservience 

Losing is Winning

Justice is Persecution

Victimization is Virtue

This week, with Navalny's death, it felt to me like the foundations of global order were shaking. I couldn't comprehend why. Trump comparing himself to Navalny clarified it for me. Order slips into chaos when language loses its meaning.   

Bob Barker (the song)

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

A boy at home

Nursing a cold

Bored and hopeless

Watching daytime soaps

 

The game shows

Oh the game shows

Saved the day 

For a boy so bored

No one smarter

Than Bob Barker

No one smarter

Than Bob Barker

The way that he smiled

And the way he spoke

Made contestants excited 

Gave them hope

Johnny calls a name

Says come on down

For a chance to win prizes

Jump on stage and dance around 

No one smarter

Than Bob Barker

No one smarter

Than Bob Barker

An animal lover

Cause there's nothing cuter 

Than loving your pets   

So get them spayed or neutered

Bob Barker Bob Barker

Made the world better

Guess the right price

And you're the winner

No one smarter

Than Bob Barker

No one smarter

Than Bob Barker

Spin the big wheel

Nearest to a dollar

To the showcase showdown 

With Bob Barker

Bob Barker and his beauties

Janice, Dian and Holly

Will cure any boy 

Of his melancholy. 

 

 

The world is getting meaner

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

The world is getting meaner 

and so am I 

to a body the ocean

is personal

tread water or

sink

I’m learning how 

to work with the current

so I'm not dragged

completely under.

Hostage rescue, 1 for 100

News this week of the IDF rescuing two hostages from Rafah in southern Gaza. The hostages are 60-year-old Fernando Simon Marman and 70-year-old Louis Har. Both men are in relatively good condition. The rescue operation involved police special forces and an IDF tank brigade entering a residential building where the hostages were being held. The hostages were found on the second floor “in the hands of Hamas terrorists.” Hamas militants were stationed in adjacent apartment buildings. The rescue comes at a time of widespread international condemnation of Israel, with US and European allies ramping up the pressure to wind down operations, and a threat from Egypt to withdraw from its peace agreement with Israel if it enters Rafah. The rescue operation came at the reported cost of up to 100 Palestinian lives (not sure how many of those are militants). Tough spot to be in. Rafah was supposed to be a safe zone where many Palestinians from the north of Gaza were told they could flee. What they weren't told is that when they arrived they would be used as human shields and therefore become criminally complicit. Hamas continues to violate international law and use Palestinian civilians as military tools. Is there any question remaining whether the continuation of Israel's military operation to rescue hostages is justified? If 100 Palestinians die for every hostage that is rescued (in this case it was 50), who is responsible for that? With a story like this I ask myself, if my wife and kids were being held hostage and I have to blow up a building to rescue them would I do it? Damn right I would (after warning the residents to get out). And who could blame me? To me it's analagous to a school hostage situation. The rule of thumb is to go in with guns blazing, because every second of hesitation is a second closer to greater catastrophe. Why isn't the world joining in with Israel's effort by coming down as hard as they can on Hamas to surrender and release the hostages? That is the surest way to save Palestinian lives. Every day of hesitation in that effort is a day of more lives lost. Israel's only moral obligation is to spare no cost to get the remaining hostages back (and remember 30 have already died) or force Hamas to give them up as soon as possible. The ball's in Hamas's court. They can decide to end the suffering of 'their people' tomorrow. But they don't, buoyed by the world's condemnation of Israel's rescue operation. It confounds the mind. Until then, we fight for the lives of every hostage.

What Happened to Parenting

Like so many, I watched some of the US Senate Judiciary committee hearing on the harm of big tech platforms to children. The performance politicking hit a particular low when Tom Cotton of Arkansas questioned Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew repeatedly about his citizenship (not seeming to understand that Singapore was a country) and asked if he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party. That moment was only outdone by Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee accusing Mark Zuckerberg of wanting to turn Meta into the 'premier sex trafficking site in the country.' The irony was palpable that such 'gotcha' moments were designed to go viral on the very same social media platforms the Senators were vociferously attacking. Irony died with hypocrisy in Congress a while ago. 

The other moment that featured prominently on the nightly news was Zuckerberg turning to apologize to the assembled parents behind him, many of whom were holding pictures of their children who had been bullied or blackmailed online into committing suicide. He told them he felt bad for the pain and suffering they were enduring. Crocodile tears.

I understand the demands for social media platforms to do more to make online spaces safer for young people. They should do more to make them safer for the rest of us too, curbing hate-speech, antisemitism, racism, bigotry, misogyny, terrorism and political interference. 

Still, while watching the hearing the question I couldn't help asking myself was: Whatever happened to parenting? It's not as if I'm completely insensitive to the challenges of raising kids in the age of social media. Of our four daughters, one of them has never known a world without it, and the others have lived with it since they were adolescents. Three of my four children are subsumed in it, their lives barely exist outside of social media in any meaningful way, their online personas indistinguishable from their real-world ones. Like alcohol, social media can and should be understood as an addictive substance, and the dangers of abuse should be made clear to anyone who chooses to partake, especially adolescents who lack fully-formed brains. 

As parents there's only so much we can do, after a certain point in time. But my question about parenting relates to the years before that point is reached, before the die has been cast and your offspring is an independent agent in the world who will make their own decisions, good and bad, and any parental influence is henceforth negligible. The moment when your parental report card comes in, and all the work you've put in with your children, loving them, spending time with them, listening to them, nourishing them, teaching them, guiding them and helping them, either pays off or doesn't. As with any report card, when enough work hasn't been put in, it usually shows.

Extending the school analogy... my concern is how we've been offloading parental responsibilities on non-parents for years, especially in the schools. Schools no longer just provide educational services, they feed our children and provide them with social services and psychological services too. Teachers have been telling us for a long time that they are finding it difficult to do the job they were trained to do because they are overwhelmed with so many non-teaching aspects of the job related to the wellbeing of students. Burn out is rampant and fewer people are entering the profession because it's become unmanageable. Our eldest daughter was a post high-school CEGEP English teacher (Quebec's version of grade 12 and 13). The workload was too much for her to bear and the frustration level was off the charts. The job literally made her stressed to the point of physical illness. Her career lasted less than two years. 

Might the dearth of values and moral obtuseness we're witnessing in recent generations have something to do with the fact that so much basic child-rearing has been dumped from the home onto the system? 

Coincidentally, this week we saw the beginning of the unprecedented trial for involuntary manslaughter of Jennifer Crumbley, mother of Ethan, the teenager who murdered four high-schoolers and wounded seven others in Oxford, Michigan. Ethan's father James will be tried separately. The Crumbley parents purchased the murder weapon for their underage son as a Christmas present, apparently despite being aware of his unstable mental health. Without knowledge of the case against the elder Crumbleys, it's not a stretch to surmise that parental neglect was involved. Don’t take my word for it take Jennifer's, who wrote in text messages after the shooting, “I failed as a parent. I failed miserably.”

I’m no psychologist but might there be a connection between parental inattention, and disturbed children taking out their rage on their school? A kind of sublimation of anger actually intended at their parents? Ethan Crumbley’s journal was found at the scene of the shooting in which he wrote, “my parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist... I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the fucking school.”

I’m not saying Ethan’s criminally reckless parents are comparable to the parents whose children committed suicide after being cyber-bullied. But there is the same main missing ingredient in both cases, although in different quantities, with tragic consequences. One thing’s for sure, you can’t blame the kids.

[Update: The jury returned an involutary manslaughter guilty verdict for Jennifer Crumbley]

Making Bad Decisions

According to the UN Gaza is on the brink of full-scale famine. Media images have started appearing of dirty children in soiled, ripped clothing in the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza holding metal cups and bowls clambering for ladles of watery soup, like a scene out of a Dickens novel. No doubt Israel will be blamed. CNN did a story the other day about the ten countries including the US and Canada who have suspended funding to UNRWA in the wake of a report that as many as 10% of the agency's 12,000 employees in Gaza have ties to Hamas, and a dozen are known to have physically taken part in the attacks against Israel on October 7th. The CNN story ended showing a desperate Palestinian woman pleading to the camera that if UNRWA ceases services everyone in Gaza will die. Count on CNN to focus, not on the corruption of the organization that has both implicitly and explicitly supported terrorism with their activities, but rather on a victim's heartbreaking plea for continued funding of that same corrupt organization. It's hard to fathom how by now everyone doesn't understand that the catastrophe of the Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) is the responsibility of the Palestinians and their so-called leadership, underwritten, enabled and supported by the funding of the international community via the UN. It's somewhat heartening to see that the rot below the surface is finally being exposed. But I'm not terribly encouraged that anything significant will come of it. Unfortunately, some important funders of UNRWA, like the EU fearing a backlash from their Arab citizenry, are not getting the message. In a recent podcast, Sam Harris, in his inimitably calm rational way, lays out the moral and political stakes of Israel's war against Hamas. He covers most of the points I posted about in my Moral Clarity series (he calls them 5 myths), but much more clearly and succinctly than I do. It's one of his remarks near the end of the podcast that sticks with me most. A factoid I didn't know. Harris notes that when Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th attack, was in an Israeli prison, he was treated to remove a life-threatening brain tumour. I'm not suggesting that Sinwar should not have received the medical care he needed while in Israeli custody (although I doubt that the hostages in Palestinian detention are receiving anywhere close to the same care.) But think about it. Israeli surgeons in an Israeli hospital (at Israeli taxpayer expense) saved the life of the man who years later would plan and execute the slaughter of their citizens in the most savage attack on Israeli soil in its history. I can't think of a more straightforward example of the way that Israel and the Palestinians operate in separate moral universes. Of course, it wasn't only Sinwar's surgery that permitted him to become Israel's nemesis, it was also his release from jail as part of the absurd 1:1000 prisoner swap. All of it highlights how we in the west have continually undermined our own position because we fail to grasp how our (higher) moral standards have been leveraged against us by our enemies. They do it through our media. They do it through our universities. They do it through our international aid organizations and charities. I'm not suggesting we should lower or alter our moral standards. On the contrary, we need to do everything we can to raise and protect them. And to do that we need to acknowledge when we're being played and stop making bad decisions based on it. Our bad decisions have allowed the Palestinians to live in the delusion for decades that Israel will one day go away. They've chosen and supported their corrupt and genocidal leaders based on this delusion. We've enabled the delusion with our funding of UNRWA, with our anti-Israel demonstrations, with our anti-Israel universities, with our bleeding heart media coverage, and most importantly, with our own weak political leadership and decision-making, both in Israel and in the diaspora. Weakness sends a signal that we can be played with. As Harris says in his podcast, had Israel responded to hostilities with pacifism it would have been suicidal, had the Palestinians responded with pacifism, they would have had a state long ago. They had no incentive to act responsibly and take a reasonable position because we in the west have shown time and again that given enough pressure we'd cave. It's time that we helped the Palestinians, learn from their catastrophically self-defeating mistakes, by no longer showing weakness, and not making any more mistakes of our own.  

Resumé For An American President

Sexual assault.

Adjudicated rape.

Defamation.

Defrauding the public.

Bank fraud.

Insurance fraud.

Business fraud.

Falsifying business records.

Misuse of funds from a tax-exempt charity.

Tax evasion.

Accepting foreign emoluments.

Willful retention of National Defense Information.

Corrupt concealment of documents.

Mishandling classified documents.

False statements to a federal official.

Election interference. 

Racketeering.

Conspiracy.

Conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Obstruction of an official proceeding.

Insurrection.

Incitement to violence.

Dereliction of duty.

Impeachment.

Racism.

Bigotry.

Misogyny.

Adultery.

Draft dodging.

Bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy.

Word flowers

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

Word flowers

            redolent blossoms

of sticky nectar

                           my mind 

             buzzed by  

meaning

                 moves from petal  

to petal 

              to petal 

pollen spray of sentiment

              dust blooms

                    astral floating 

   settling on the

infinite 

      moment 

 

I was in love 

   once

          and believed  

that word

          and so it was 

until  

         it wasn't

but in memory 

          the scent is still 

so

        sweet.

The Age of Stupidity

Has there ever been a stupider time? There's just so much stupidity available for consumption these days, it's so widespread the world teems with it. Used to be people were careful about saying stupid things. These days people revel in it. There's no shame in public stupidity. Stupidity finds stupidity and reinforces stupidity. There are groups organized around stupidity. Tribes of stupidity. People are proud of their stupidity and shout it from the hills. Saying stupid things is like carrying a flag - a freedom banner that says 'I'm so free I can say the stupidest things imaginable!' People wear stupid slogans on their clothes. Support stupid people who say the stupidest things in their politics. They buy stupid products advertised by stupid people who make stupid claims about them. They watch stupid movies, play stupid video games and listen to stupid songs. This is truly the age of stupidity. I'm not saying there aren't smart people. And I'm not saying smart people aren't doing smart things. I'm saying that stupid people saying and doing stupid things rule the day. So much so that even smart people are saying stupid things. I like to watch videos online about ideas. I've noticed that there are a lot of very smart, highly educated people promoting and taking seriously some of the stupidest ideas. Lately, for example, I've been interested in theories of consciousness. Reading books about consciousness from  lay-scientific and philosophical perspectives. For decades, the theory and study of consciousness was an area considered marginal at best in academia. It wasn’t taken seriously. If you wanted an academic career specializing in the theory of consciousness it was a fast track to obscurity or unemployment. Now there seems to be an entire industry of academics solely devoted to theories of consciousness, and online discussions about consciousness abound. They talk about consciousness from all kinds of angles, philosophical, psychological, neurological, zoological, sociological, quantum-mechanical, mathematical and spiritual. The funniest part is that no one is quite sure what consciousness is, and they all say as much. Maybe that’s the reason some of the stupidest theories by smart people I've seen are posited about consciousness. They say consciousness does not really exist, or that rocks are conscious, or that consciousness exists outside of our consciousness, or that what we think is consciousness is actually a computer simulation in which we live. I have nothing against stupid theories. History demonstrates how some theories once thought stupid turn out to be correct. It's important to put forward stupid theories. But most stupid theories turn out to be just stupid, and these days we're inundated by them. The difference is that there used to be a system in place to separate the promising stupid theories from the ones that are just stupid. There were gatekeepers before that blocked most of us from hearing the unpromising stupid theories. That gatekeeping system has evaporated and now we hear them all. Obviously social media is a big part of it. Smart people with stupid ideas can reach a wide audience, just like dumb people with stupid ideas can, and everyone loves attention. In fact, stupid ideas are magnets for getting attention. It's how the National Enquirer became a newspaper empire. If you’re an academic toiling in obscurity on a stupid theory, the incentive to put your half-baked ideas out there is undeniable. Of course, for the rest of us with stupid opinions, social media has been a bonanza. We can take adolescent pleasure in showing how free we are to say stupid and irresponsible things. At the beginning of widespread internet access we all thought it would make us smarter and more informed. It turned out the opposite. We learned that we are far more attracted to stupidity than expertise. Ignorance is definitely bliss. It feels good to let our cellphones tell us what to do and how to think. But we shouldn't forget that being stupid is actually a very big deal. Stupidity inevitably leads to chaos, disorder and destruction. Wars result from stupidity. I think our turn to toward populist far-right politics relates to our age of stupidity. With so much stupidity on display we want strongmen leaders to save us from ourselves. Our pervasive apathy and disillusionment also relates to all the stupidity to which we are constantly exposed. Even our fear of AI relates to stupidity. Many of us believe it's inevitable that the computers we create will become more clever than us and decide to be our overlords because we're just too stupid to do anything about it. We seem convinced by our own stupidity that we are irredeemably stupid. That would be a paralyzingly self-defeatingly stupid conclusion to draw.

Buddha

Are we not supposed

       in the thick heat of the day

to kill mosquitoes?

The Sermonizer

My wife hates it when I sermonize. I don't blame her. It's my vice. Even when I am venting frustration about politics, I somehow end up preaching, as you've probably found from reading this blog lately. 

So there we were chatting at my wonderful mother-in-law's 85th birthday party this weekend at our home. Most of the crowd had gathered around the dining room table to partake in the various homemade gastronomic delicacies prepared by my wife. All the seats were taken. As it is beyond my skill-set to stand around a buffet table making small talk while balancing an overflowing plate of food in one hand and a fork in the other while trying to stuff my face, I politely took myself and my over-capacity plate (and drink) to the living room couch. I sat there alone for a few minutes shovelling it in, before I was joined by my strapping, handsome, 15-year old nephew. He didn't have a plate, I presume because he'd scoffed his food down as athletic teenage boys do. Looking bored out of his mind, he plopped his muscular 6-foot frame down next to me on the couch and smiled. I said, "I guess you'd rather be playing hockey?" He didn't answer, understanding instantly that the question was rhetorical. I thought to myself, poor kid has no idea what he's in for sitting next to me.

We began talking about school. He's in grade 10 (or as we call it here in Quebec, Sec. IV). I asked him about the government exams he has to write this year. He said, English, French, Science, but the worst, he said, was History. He's not a great student in general. More of a jock-type, as you might have guessed by my description of him. You'd think French or Science would be the tricky subjects. History, the worst? I inquired in a  puzzled tone. Yeah, he said, what do I care about the fur trade? The French colonists? You live in Quebec, I stated the obvious. The government here makes policy that affects every day of your life. Some of it seemingly ridiculous, like the language laws. Understanding the history helps us understand why. "Actually," I say to him, "you probably don't feel it at all. You live on your little island. I get it, believe me. I was exactly like you. Grew up in my English-speaking Jewish enclave. Went to Jewish school. Had only Jewish friends. Went to Florida for Christmas break like all the Montreal Jews. The only time you ever see a dyed in the wool Québecois is on the ice at the arena, I bet. Must feel like you're playing against a foreign team." He nods. "Your world is so small," I repeat, without condescension. "At least this semester we're going to study World War I," he says. "Ah, the Conscription Crisis," I declare. The comment draws a blank. For him, there is a modicum of interest in that period because it's closer to his personal history on one side of his family. His paternal grandparents were born in Europe, survived WWII, came to Canada as refugees, and speak with accents. "You see how important history is," I tell him. "You are history." He smiles politely. "But I have trouble remembering dates," he says flatly. 

Now I'm thinking about how this kid is the embodiment of history. How his grandparents escaped persecution. How he doesn't have a care in the world because of all the sacrifices they made. And of course I'm relating that history to my own which is similar (although my grandparents came before the war), as it is with all Jews. I tell him, "Understanding history, caring about it, is actually a way of appreciating who you are and how far your family has come, what they had to go through to get here." 

It makes me think about our ancestors, I say to him. And not just from the last hundred years, but our biblical ancestors too. "You know, how they came out of slavery, and wandered in the desert, and got the Torah at Sinai and were led to the Promised Land," I say. "Jewish history repeats." Now, I realize I have to tread lightly, because what 15-year old kid wants to hear a sermon from his uncle? But I seem to still have his interest, because I'm sort of connecting his history to our history. He's looking engaged, and not strictly out of respect for adults.

"But even if you don't believe any of it," I say to him. "Let’s say you think it’s all BS. You don't believe in the biblical Israelites, or that we were slaves in Egypt, or that we wandered in the desert for 40 years, or were given the Tablets of Law at Mt. Sinai, any of that stuff. The Torah tells us something else very special. Something that's as relevant today as it was back then. Maybe more so."

"What's that uncle Glen? he asks.

Mindful that I have to keep it short, I say, "At the very end of the story, Moses tells the people, after everything they've been through... not that God has given them all the answers... but that he's given them a choice. God has shown them 'the blessing and the curse', and he tells them to choose wisely. What he means is that it's up to us, no one else, what we do with our lives. There's no one to blame if it doesn't work out, no one to point a finger at." I tell my nephew that I don't think that any other western religious tradition offers that as the ultimate message. Muslims are told to surrender to Allah or be deemed unworthy apostates, like the Jews are. The Christians blame the Jews for rejecting Jesus and we are damned to eternal hell for it. I say to my nephew, "In our sacred scripture, we're told that we have no one to blame but ourselves for our predicament. And that's the secret sauce of our endurance and success. And it's also why you've got so much to be thankful for. The power is yours how to run your life, and thanks to your grandparents, you've had a lucky head start."       

At that moment, my sister-in-law enters the living room and says to my nephew, we've got to leave, get your coat. "Saved by the bell," I say with a chuckle. 

My nephew lifts himself up off the couch like he's carrying a boulder, looks down at me from his towering height and says, "I like talking to you uncle Glen." We weren't talking about the rapidly fading playoff hopes of our beloved hapless Habs (the Montreal Canadiens hockey team), but I can tell he's being sincere. 

Moral Clarity part 20: Taking the Palestinians seriously

Israel is judged differently. We're seeing the hypocrisy on full display at the International Court of Justice this week, where South Africa is making a case against Israel for genocide. As retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella put it succinctly in a Globe and Mail article, "It is a legal absurdity to suggest that a country defending itself from genocide is thereby guilty of genocide." 

The double standards go deep. What other nation, after being brutally savagely attacked by an enemy, is expected to respond 'proportionately'? What other nation at war against an enemy whose sole stated mission and purpose is your annihilation is told they must use restraint? How is fighting back not self-defense? What other nation is accused of 'genocide' when it engages a terrorist aggressor in military operations by dropping flyers to try to minimize civillian casualities? After the United States was attacked by terrorists on September 11th was there a discussion of 'proportionality? Between 280,000 and 315,000 Iraqi civilians were killed according to a conservative estimate in that operation. Was the US accused of genocide? The Syrian Network for Human Rights has stated it documented 230,784 civilian deaths and 14 million displaced persons in the Syrian Civil War between 2011 and 2023. That war has resulted in an estimated 470,000–610,000 violent deaths, making it the second deadliest conflict of the 21st century, after the Second Congo War. Did any members of the international community take Bashar Al-Assad to the ICJ for genocide? I'll give you a hint, no.

In the war with Hamas there is no doubt that Palestinian civilians have suffered greatly. And the reason for that is because unlike a 'normal' war, with a 'normal' combatant, the Hamas army does not seek to protect non-combatant civilians. On the contrary, it seeks to use them as a tool of warfare. That the international community is not unanimously outraged by this and does not demand full-throatedly that this criminally inhuman practice stop immediately, is to me the most unfathomable and shameful  aspect of the current conflict. They would rather accuse Israel of genocide.

We know that Israel stands alone because it's unique in a host of ways. It's a tiny country of unusual religious, historical and geographical significance. It's the only country whose existence was given assent by the international community via a vote of the UN. But the scrutiny of Israel's conduct shouldn't be seen as unique. That it seems unique is an indictment of the way the international community let's other nations get away with murder, literally. Furthermore, it only seems like Israel is held to a higher standard of moral conduct vis-a-vis the Palestinians, because they are not held to any standard of moral conduct at all. They are infantalized and treated as children under guardianship, coddled and enabled by the UN and many other Arab and non-Arab nations who take advantage of them. For their part, the Palestinians like to have it both ways. They want the rights and privileges of being treated like an 'adult' member of the international community, without any of the accompanying responsibilities. 

Some people argue that there's no such thing as Palestine, and the Palestinian 'nation' doesn't really exist. I'm not one of those. I don't think anyone has any right to tell another group of people how to identify themselves. All identities are a conglomeration of fact and fictions, whether they are based in politics, culture, race or religion. It's about stories we tell ourselves. But I suspect that part of the reason some people don't take the Palestinians seriously, in spite of the flag, the slogans, and the narrative they embrace, is because serious people take responsibility for decisions and actions. The Palestinian people must be held to the same basic standard.

When it launched its war on Israel, Hamas was hoping that it would be joined in the fight by the Palestinians of the West Bank (as well as Hizbollah and other Iran-backed and anti-Israel factions). They miscalculated. West Bank Palestinians didn't join the fight because they are (quietly) hoping Israel will succeed in destroying Hamas so they can regain control of Gaza. Another example of the Palestinians hoping Israel will clean up its messes. It's hard to take them seriously.

Moral Clarity part 19: Antisemitism

It's been called 'the oldest hatred', 'a mutating virus', another word for 'anti-Israel'. I dislike talking about antisemitism so much. I dislike it because I don't completely understand it. Calling anything 'antisemitic' often feels to me reflex, reactive, or at best imprecise, a kind of catch-all for any destructive act directed at Jewish people. It's an uncomfortable term to use. Try and find a definition of antisemitism and you'll understand what I mean. 

On Wikipedia you get "hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews." No word of 'hatred'. On the US State Department website they use a definition taken from something called the Plenary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA): "A certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." Hatred is mentioned but it's a 'certain perception' that 'may be expressed as hatred'. Pretty vague stuff. It continues, "Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities" ('non-Jewish individuals'? I guess it's not always apparent if someone is Jewish to antisemites). They struggle with the definition too, and go on to give examples to help explain it. 

I had always thought 'hatred' was the essential component of antisemitism. But that's where things get tricky, because how do you know when someone 'hates'? Hate is an extreme emotion and is associated with extreme and irrational actions. I'm thinking now about when the trump campaign started calling his opponents 'haters'? It was effective because most people don't want to think of themselves as motivated by irrationality. There's a blindness implied by hatred. I don't think most antisemitism is 'hateful' in the sense of blind rage. The Nazis were quintessentially antisemitic, and they were also very methodical and rational, even scientific. Arendt calls their coldbloodedness 'banal'. Seems to me that most people who take actions that are motivated by antisemitism do so with a degree of rationality. If that's the case then something more subtle than 'hatred' must be at play.  

Let's say it's not about hatred, although hatred could certainly play a role. Let's say it's more about blame - which makes it weird that I didn't see the word 'blame' used in any of the definitions I found. That would mean that the essence of antisemitism is blaming Jews as a group for problems; big problems and small problems, global problems and individual problems. The 'as a group' part seems critical. The blame must be generalized, because antisemitism appears to embody something grand, systematic and conspiratorial. In this way, even when a Jewish person is identified as 'blameworthy' it is not because they act alone, but because they represent the group. And so Jeffrey Epstein, or Bernie Madoff, might be terrible people who do reprehensible acts meriting accusation, but the accusations become antisemitic when the fact that they are both Jewish becomes the central factor of their actions, implying that their behaviour is representative (a trait) of the group to which they belong. 

This idea of blaming the group, would help to explain how antisemitism could play such a significant role in conspiratorial belief systems as diverse as Christian Nationalism, Islamism and Qanon, and could motivate such a range of heinous acts as 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. It would also explain the historical persistence of antisemitism over millenia in different cultures and religions. There's never been any rhyme or reason to antisemitism. Jews were blamed for being arch-communists (unionists) by the capitalists, and for being arch-capitalists by the communists. Antisemitism has been religiously motivated, racially motivated, economically motivated and politically motivated. There's only one common element; it's about blame, and blame is human nature. Everyone blames all the time, because taking individual responsibility is hard. Bottom line, if it's human nature, it can't be stamped out. This understanding also explains better, in my mind, how Jews can be antisemitic. I dislike the term 'self-hating' because as a rule I generally don't think people hate themselves. But they can dislike aspects of themselves, namely the group to which others identify them, because it makes them feel insecure. Antisemitism practiced by Jews is essentially an effort at disassociation. It could be motivated by shame, or other forms of psychological discomfort, which launches a whole other topic worthy of deep scrutiny, but not here.

Putting psychology aside, why have Jews been such a perennial favourite for scorn and blame by others throughout history? I've heard some people argue that it's because of jealousy. Jews have been disproportionately prominent, in culture, academia, business, media etc. Jewish prominence is a very recent phenomenon. Historical antisemitism demonstrates otherwise. In most societies where Jews have lived we've been poor, powerless and disfavoured, which never stopped antisemitism, quite the contrary, it accelerated it. Seems to me antisemitism has been around for so long for three simple reasons: Jews have been around so long, we've lived everywhere, and we've been the minority everywhere we've lived (we've kept to ourselves). That's it. It doesn't have to be more complicated. We've been an easy and identifiable target.

If my understanding is correct, we can conclude two things: First, as long as people blame others for their problems, antisemitism will exist. Second, the only thing Jews can do about it is not be such an easy target. Having an army certainly helps.

Moral Clarity part 18: Dumb War, Necessary War

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country.”

The quote is taken from Maj.-Gen. William T. Sherman, commanding officer of Union troops in the vicinity of Atlanta, in early September 1864, as quoted by David J. Bercuson in a National Post commentary. Bercuson argues that the debate over using so-called 'dumb bombs' over so-called 'precision munitions' is largely moot. Yes, dumb bombs are much less expensive which is why they continue to be used. But in neither case can civilian casualties be avoided. Precision bombs don't magically distinguish between enemy combatants and nearby family members or innocent pedestrians in the wrong place at the wrong time either. 

The principal tactic of every war ever fought is to inflict as much cost on your enemy as you can until the point when they decide it's time to surrender. War may be understood as a form of political persuasion, because each side must make a unilateral decision on when the point of surrender has been reached. The tolerance for damage to the point of defeat is variable. Some nations have a very high threshold indeed. During World War 2 hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, and of course Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before Germany and Japan respectively surrendered. Germany would not surrender until its cities were reduced to rubble and high-school children and retirees were enlisted to fight - in the final battle of Berlin the Nazis called upon the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) and the ragtag Volkssturm (citizen army) to defend the capital against the approaching Soviet Red Army. France, on the other hand, surrendered shortly after German forces breached the Maginot Line and waltzed into Paris within a few weeks, sustaining relatively little damage to their civilian population and infrastructure. 

The difference between Germany/Japan and France? It's who made the decision to surrender. In dictatorships that decision ultimately rests entirely with one person. In a democracy it rests with institutions ie. a government that is accountable to the electorate. Take the war in Vietnam as an example of how the difference works. That war did not end because the US was defeated militarily. The US military had the firepower and resources to continue fighting for decades. The war was ultimately brought to an 'ignoble' end because of widespread disfavour expressed by a politically active and vocal citizenry. It goes without saying that this political dynamic does not happen in dictatorships. More importantly, once defeated militarily, if they surrender, peace can't be made with dictatorships because no dictatorship will negotiate to compromise their absolute power. It's simply not in the DNA of dictatorship. The dictator will sooner die than surrender power, let alone make peace. It's why defeated Germany and Japan had to become democracies in the aftermath of the war. Power had to be ceded to the governed. It was the only possible result to ensure peace in the long term, since the only truly humane form of governance, the only form that embodies the legitimacy to wage war and can ensure that war will end at a point that reflects the interest of the people who wage it, is democracy. 

The analogy of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan holds equally true for the war with Hamas, it has to be seen first and foremost as a war against tyranny. To the extent that the Palestinian people fully support Hamas, agree with their aims, or have accepted the entirety of Gaza being turned into a military facility by them, including rocket launchers installed in residential apartment buildings and elementary schools, and military warehouses and command centers being built under hospitals - they bear moral responsibility for what is happening to them. To the extent that the UN has been complicit, it too bears responsibility. 

Bercuson concludes his essay by writing, "There is really only one way to avoid civilian casualties by aerial bombardment — don’t start a war in the first place. Either Hamas could not figure that out, or they didn’t care." Bercuson doesn't entertain another notion; Hamas wanted to increase civilian casualties and invited aerial bombardment, licked their chops for it, because being so severely militarily outmatched as they knew they were, it was the only way to achieve a political victory in a war with Israel. Hamas needed on their side of the battle the large swathes of the sympathetic (western) public and antisemitic (Arab) public. In the fight between democracy and tyranny, a total victory of democracy is the only humane and moral resolution. Proportionality as a consideration in such a war cannot apply. My corollary to Bercuson's conclusion is, don't start a war you can't finish.