Thursday, August 2, 2018
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Facebooking Friendship
“Don’t stand on ceremony.” It was one of my mother’s favorite expressions. And a few of her friends gave her plenty of reasons to use it. Like when they didn’t visit her in the hospital after major surgery, or when they didn’t check in with her after my grandmother died.
It would drive my dad insane. “How can you call her after she did this to you?” He must have said that about a thousand times. But it would never change my mother’s position. These were her close friends whom she loved and did everything for; if they didn’t reciprocate, she thought, there must be a good reason.
Over the years, I’ve toggled back and forth between my parents’ positions. But for the most part, I’ve been blessed with such caring, giving friends that it really hasn’t been an issue.
All of this changed with the advent of social media, most especially the intertwining of politics and friendship. Politics used to be a backdrop to relationships; it was there but no one except extremists would allow it to affect a friendship. Today, politics is one of the first things people ask about when meeting new people.
But there’s another element at play — you can call it the Facebooking of friendships. We are liking, disliking, unfriending and blocking friends in real life with a touchscreen ease and frequency. One friend told me that an old friend recently unfriended her — in real life — because she didn’t like how she makes decisions. Another friend was booted from her social circle for not dealing with her son in the manner they deemed appropriate.
Here in New York City, superficial friendships well predate social media, but the level has definitely been cranked up a few notches in recent years. One father told me that when he goes to his kids’ events, he does a quick social status scan and if there’s no one there “worth his time,” he leaves. A few women at my son’s school only talk to me when they like what I’m wearing. A couple I know only socializes with other couples who own second homes in the Hamptons.
Is it any wonder that studies show we are getting lonelier and lonelier?
I had my first encounter with the new face of friendship when I began to defend Israel publicly in the summer of 2014. Half of my friends — friends of 20-plus years — stopped talking to me. In the past six months, I’ve been dealing with one of those major, life-changing events. Many of those same friends were too busy to check in with a quick, “How’s it going?”
I can hear my mom sweetly rationalizing and my dad yelling back at her. But I find myself moving to my dad’s position more and more. Why? Because those friends — those friends who I thought were friends for life — have been almost weirdly replaced by some of the most beautiful souls I have ever encountered. Friends who happen to be largely politically aligned, but on the areas that we’re not, we shrug. Who cares? Why does that matter?
What matters is how we treat one another. And these new friends have been there for me every painful step of an exquisitely painful process.
We are liking, disliking, unfriending and blocking friends in real life with a touchscreen ease and frequency.
The truth is, the new face of friendship needs a spiritual facelift. My mother’s desire to forgive the unforgivable, to try to find the light in people who hurt her immeasurably, was kindhearted but ultimately misguided. Because if we are to truly value friendship, how can it be valued when it is not true?
Unlike familial relationships, friendship is indeed conditional. But only fools make it conditional on politics or designer clothing. Friendship should be conditional on shared values. And when it is, friends can inspire us to be the best we can possibly be.
In Judaism, not only are friends sometimes valued even more than relatives, it is what friends offer each other — loyalty, support, love, guidance — that is of most importance. “Judaism is not about the lonely soul,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes. “It is about the bonds that bind us to one another and to the Author of all. It is, in the highest sense, about friendship.”
Like a soul needs beauty, of course, friendships need tending, nourishing. Every moment of which is well worth the work.
“A faithful friend is the elixir of life,” wrote Ben Sira in his apocryphal book, “Ecclesiasticus.” That holds true today, with or without Facebook.
Karen Lehrman Bloch is an author and cultural critic living in New York..
Facebooking Friendship : https://ift.tt/2vxhzNUNationality Law: Optics Vs. Impact
I understand why so many people are freaking out over the recent legislation making Israel the “nation-state of the Jewish people.” The optics aren’t good. While much of the Nationality Law affirms the obvious symbols of a Jewish state — the flag, the national anthem, holidays, etc. — other parts are more controversial. These include clauses relegating the Arab language to a “special” status rather than an official one, and promoting the establishment of Jewish communities throughout Israel.
Like I said, bad optics. But what about actual impact?
Yuval Shani, executive vice president of the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent think tank known to be highly sensitive to anything that threatens Israel’s democratic character, told The Jerusalem Post: “It is not a game changer and has very little problematic implications. It won’t change how the country is run.”
Having said that, Shani added: “It is not an injury but an insult.”
So, while Arabs and other minorities will not suffer injury and will have the same civil liberties as before — the same freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to protest, freedom of the press, etc. — many non-Jews may feel insulted and diminished because the “Jewish” part of “Jewish state” will become more official.
Said another way, the Zionist elephant in the room will now be sitting at the table, munching on the hummus.
I guess it was just a matter of time before the great paradox of the Zionist project — A state for the Jews with equal rights for non-Jews? A Jewish state that recognizes other religions? — would come in for some reckoning. How could it not?
The Jewish democracy project was always destined to be a delicate dance between two crucial ideals in constant tension.
I confess that what I find bothersome in all the hysteria is a seeming lack of appreciation for the incredible difficulty in managing this paradox, not to mention the precarious tension inherent in the very idea of a Jewish democracy.
Presumably, critics of the Nationality Law would have had no problem with beefing up the “democratic” part of the equation. That would have triggered no controversy. But to beef up the Jewish part? That’s not as popular.
“Democracy” signifies human rights, freedom, equality, social justice and all the noble ideals associated with modern societies.
“Jewish” signifies religion, tribalism, exclusivity and all that is unfashionable about less enlightened nation-states.
Viewed through that lens, any move seen as downplaying democracy and playing up Jewishness is asking for trouble, even if the trouble is mostly symbolic. That is what happened with the Nationality Law: Israel played up its Jewishness and the world pounced.
Through the firestorm, we don’t hear much about Israel’s courageous accomplishment on the democratic part of the ledger. Amid the toxic talk about Israel turning into a racist state, you would never know that the luckiest Muslims in the Middle East are the ones who live in the Jewish state, a state under siege and in a continuous state of war.
If the law “is not a game changer” and “won’t change how the country is run,” why are people freaking out over the recognition of the Jewish character of the Jewish state?
With all of their challenges, it is only in Israel where Arabs and Muslims enjoy such a high level of basic rights and freedoms. The new law changes none of that, good or bad. What it does is touch an emotional chord — it reminds non-Jews that they live in a Jewish country.
I don’t want to minimize that sentiment, but I don’t want to blow it out of proportion, either.
It’s instructive that most criticism of the new law is indeed blown out of proportion, as with the Jewish leader who predicted it would result in “enormous damage” to the “legitimacy of the Zionist vision.”
Really? As much as I agree that the optics are bad and a case could be made that the law wasn’t necessary, such over-the-top reactions end up making a case that the law may, in fact, be necessary.
After all, if the law “is not a game changer” and “won’t change how the country is run,” why are people freaking out over the recognition of the Jewish character of the Jewish state? In other words, if the world explodes in horror at a step to reaffirm Israel’s Jewishness, maybe that in itself is a reason for Israel to take that step.
“National self-determination for the Jews in the State of Israel does not compromise by one iota the democratic or human rights of any of its other citizens,” wrote British journalist Melanie Phillips, who has written on the Middle East for decades. “No country in the world offers national self-determination to its minorities, for the simple reason that to do so would make those minorities themselves a nation.”
In any event, the Jewish democracy project was always destined to be a delicate dance between two crucial ideals in constant tension. The rising hysteria against the new law has turned this dance into a fistfight.
If you ask me, those are also bad optics.
Nationality Law: Optics Vs. Impact : https://ift.tt/2M9zQHQFriday, July 27, 2018
When Name Calling Is a Good Thing
As the cashier at the grocery store began to ring up my purchases, she glanced at me and asked, “Did you find everything you were looking for today, ma’am?”
I expected the question — it was company protocol to ask. Even on occasions when I hadn’t found quite everything I had looked for, I’d still answer blandly, “Yes, thank you.”
That day, I decided not to answer by rote. I read her name tag and said, “Yes, thank you, Toni.”
She looked back at me for a just a second and visibly brightened. “Glad to hear it!” she answered with a smile.
With only one word, I was able to infuse a predictable and commonplace interaction with a small spark of personal connection. She was not just a cashier ringing up groceries during a long shift. She was a woman named Toni.
Happy with these results, I have made it a regular habit to call sales clerks or service reps by name. I do it in person and even in online chats. In person, I always am rewarded with a smile, a straightening of the shoulders, an appreciative look. I’d like to think that I would have thought of doing this on my own, but I was prompted to do it because it’s a mitzvah to greet people with a pleasant demeanor. It’s also a mitzvah to be the first to greet another person. What was I waiting for?
You never know where a kind greeting can lead. My friend Barry not only chatted with the manager of a local mailbox store, calling her by name, he asked her out on a date. They were married within the year.
The simple practice of greeting others with a kind expression isn’t such a small thing after all.
Addressing people by their name in a caring way leaves deep impressions. Recently, I attended a memorial tribute for an elderly friend named Maurice. Now, Maurice was a big man with a big personality, brash and bluntly opinionated. We had belonged to Pacific Jewish Center in Venice, the “Shul on the Beach,” for many years. A strong baritone, Maurice had seized the opportunity to begin prayers and hymns with his melodies of choice. His commanding voice and musical selections helped define the spiritual atmosphere of the synagogue for nearly 40 years.
Maurice was a colorful character, yet as people reminisced and eulogized him, it was clear that he had touched people by always remembering shul members’ full names, bellowing out his greetings: “Jacob Israel!” Or, “Leah Emunah!” His loud acknowledgement became one of his trademarks, but it didn’t end there.
He also remembered the names of shul members’ extended family members, and he also remembered what troubles or issues they were dealing with.
As I sat listening to the tributes, I nodded in recognition. Long ago, I told Maurice that my sister was about to undergo another spinal surgery, and for years afterward, he’d regularly ask me, his brow furrowed with concern, “How’s your sister Sharon doing?”
One speaker said half-jokingly, “I thought Maurice only remembered the names of my parents and siblings. Now that I know he did that for everyone, I’m feeling a little less special.”
The youngest speaker at the event, a young mother in her 20s, recalled that even though the synagogue was overflowing with children, Maurice knew all their names. “We all understood that in a small congregation, we were each important. Only later did I realize that a big part of this feeling came from Maurice always addressing us by name.”
In today’s society, too many people feel invisible and lonely. Increasingly, even when we’d like to smile or nod or make small talk with another person in public, we can’t. Too often, they are in the addictive clutch of their phones, an impenetrable barrier. These small losses add up to a much larger fracturing of the social compact.
I discovered through my little experiment, and Maurice proved, that the simple, old-fashioned practice of greeting others with a kind expression and acknowledging their names when we can isn’t such a small thing after all.
Judy Gruen’s latest book is “The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love With Faith” (She Writes Press, 2017).
When Name Calling Is a Good Thing : https://ift.tt/2LVrRyjTradition, Tikkun Olam Are Not an Either/Or
As a Conservative Jew, I suppose it was not surprising that I found myself agreeing in part with both Gil Troy in his July 20 Jewish Journal cover story about the book by Jonathan Neumann that he approvingly cites, and with Jonathan Klein. After all, the very essence of the ideal Conservative Jew, as defined by “Emet Ve-Emunah,” the only official statement of the philosophy of Conservative Judaism, is “Nothing human or Jewish is alien to me.”
I thus wrote this in the preface of my 2005 book, “The Way Into Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World)”:
“Surveys show that even Jews who doubt the existence or significance of God, who are not involved much in Judaism’s prayers, rituals, or holiday celebrations, who violate Judaism’s restrictions on diet and work on holy days, and/or who do not know much about their heritage or devote any time as adults to studying it nevertheless feel in their bones that they have a duty as Jews to make this a better world, that this is the essence of what it means to be a Jew. As a religious Jew, I would say that it is sad that so many people, by their own description, are “not very religious,” for such people are missing out on a virtual treasure trove of meaning, joy, intellectual ferment, and communal connections that the Jewish tradition offers us in all these other expressions of the Jewish tradition. Still, such Jews are not wrong in identifying “social action” as a key component of what it means to be Jewish, for much of the tradition is devoted to it.”
So, on one hand, Gil Troy and Jonathan Neumann are correct, in my view, that transforming Judaism into universal humanism seriously truncates its scope and message. Seeing tikkun olam as the sum total of Judaism also leads to the view that specific Jewish identity is not necessary. Therefore, all of the following fall by the wayside: marrying another Jew; continuing your learning about Judaism throughout your adult life; raising your children to become serious Jews; joining a synagogue and becoming involved in its worship and activities; supporting other Jewish communal institutions; and advocating for the State of Israel. Those are very serious losses for the Jewish tradition and the Jewish community, and it is anything but clear that either can survive on the basis of tikkun olam alone. They are also serious losses for individual Jews, for seeing tikkun olam as the sum and substance of being Jewish robs them of a whole treasure house of meaning and growth that a more serious and widespread involvement in our heritage and community would give them.
On the other hand, Jonathan Klein is clearly right when he points out that taking care of the poor, the sick and the needy in other ways is fundamental to the Jewish tradition.
On the other hand, Jonathan Klein is clearly right when he points out that taking care of the poor, the sick and the needy in other ways is fundamental to the Jewish tradition. Contrary to Neumann, this part of Judaism is not tangential or based on misreading of a few texts. Rabbi Klein cites just a few of the many texts that depict God as sustaining the needs of the destitute, and that demand of us as a matter of law that we do so likewise. As I point out in my book, tikkun olam also requires that we be there for our family and friends when they need us, that we fulfill very specific responsibilities to them. Any form of Judaism that ignores this, that focuses exclusively on Jewish rituals and prayer, is also a severely truncated form of Judaism, robbing its followers of much of its message and meaning.
Thus, the Jewish tradition itself includes demands that we engage in acts of tikkun olam for our fellow Jews, for people of other faiths, and for our environment — and if that is liberalism, so be it — but it also requires us to study and practice the tradition and to support synagogues and other Jewish institutions as well as the State of Israel. It is that kind of demanding but rich, textured and meaningful Judaism to which Gil Troy calls us, and with which Conservative Judaism has gifted me.
I hope that all of us can find our way into a Judaism that is not either/or but both … and … and … and …
Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff is a rector and distinguished professor of philosophy at American Jewish University.
Tradition, Tikkun Olam Are Not an Either/Or : https://ift.tt/2NNiT6GThursday, July 26, 2018
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