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.