Day 3

"How lovely are your tents,. O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!”

This morning we got up to go to morning Shabbat services. We had the option of doing yoga services on the beach or a more prayer and study intensive program in the hotel synagogue. I went to the latter because I knew we would be on the beach the rest of the day and I knew that Jesse would lead the services so I was curious as to what he would have to say. Casey, Aaron, Josh and another guy Dave who was in on the conversation last night chose to come too.

After we read through a few prayers, Jesse established the theme of the morning. He asked to find all mention of Israel in the passages and to think about what that means for Jews and Judaism in general. He asked the group what the modern day implications of these passages were and what it means to have a people and religion tied to a specific piece of land today. Josh raised his hand and said "war." Jesse disagreed and said that in fact, the passages were only the first step in establishing not only the religious, but cultural and national attachment to the land of Israel. He made a distinction between Political Zionism, which only began in the 19^th century, and Zionism which had existed since 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the second Temple and especially after 130 AD when they expelled all the Jews from what was then called Palestine. Traditional Zionism was the yearning for Jerusalem among all religious Jews since the destruction of the temple. It was uttered every day in prayers and was said to have been on the mind of all devout Jews at all times: " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." (137, 5-7) Political Zionism was only the transformation of this yearning to fit into the framework of states and politics that had become paramount by the late 1800's.

Jesse's points all make sense because for him, there is still a very strong religious aspect to Zionism. Interestingly, he combines a lot of the ideas the secular nationalist Zionists with some of the mainly orthodox Zionist attitudes toward God and his relationship with the Jews and the Land of Israel. Jesse looks at all of Jewish history sees some basic cross cultural and religious similarities that bind all Jews together. Although Jews never all lived in the same region, state or continent or spoke the same language, they all had the torah and they all shared the liturgical Hebrew in which they prayed and studied.

These two facets of Judaism were evidence enough of an unbroken and continuous history that linked all Jews together as a nation. The secular Zionists of the 19^th century were mainly atheists and communists who saw the same things. They argued that the religion was only national self worship and that the real ties between the Jews were cultural (in the form of shared traditions such as keeping the Sabbath, Motza, dress etc) and linguistic. They lived at a time when European ethnic national movements were in full swing, defining the Jewish reality from the outside and forcing them to consider themselves part of the same global tapestry of nations with its own right to its own land. For the Jews, the answer was simple: their land was Palestine. The religion wasn’t true, but they knew that their ancestors came from Palestine and that is where they needed to go because Europe was not theirs…it was for the Germans or the French, English, Spanish, Italians etc. However these nationalisms tend to assume a constant linkage between all people within the national umbrella throughout all time. They do not take into account, however, what the people of whom they speak actually thought of the national connections the modern day nationalists are trying to prove. This is especially true of European nationalisms like Nazism, and all the other ones inspired by 19^th century romanticism.

The Jewish case, however, is different and somewhat of a problem for those who insist that all nationalism are purely modern and mostly based on historical exaggerations or mistruths. At the very least, the idea of common ancestry, a shared language and a connection to a specific piece of land has existed in Judaism since well before the modern era. This idea was, of course, reinforced by Christian societies who never really accepted the Jews until after 1789, and even that was short lived. Nonetheless, these commonalities which supposedly bound together Jewish communities everywhere were not always as strong as modern day Zionists would have you believe.

Back to Jesse, he does accept some of the limitations of secular Zionism mentioned above, mainly that it assumes a continuous and deeply felt connection among all Jews throughout time. This sort of deeply felt connection was not always the case and in fact, it varied over time and place. This is when Jesse reverts to his faith and asserts that regardless of these variances, God has always had the Jews and Israel in mind and that he always knew that he would eventually lead them back to Israel. Even secular Jews who do not believe in God are always carrying out his will, they just don't realize it.

This sort of position is very typical of North American Jews in general and Particularly Canadian Jews. Jews in North America can be religious, but on their own terms. The plethora of Judaisms in the Diaspora allows the Jew in these liberal societies to choose the way in which he wants to practice his faith. This is not so in Israel. If Israelis are religious, they basically have to be orthodox because the orthodox have a monopoly on all religious matters within the state. So most Israelis are secular, and so they have a more difficult time coming to terms with sketchy historical credentials of secular Zionism.

Canadian Jews are particularly prone to this sort of thinking because of the nature of their national identity. As opposed to Jews in America, Canadian Jews live in a country with a mostly vague and indistinct identity. In the U.S. there was a distinct ideology and distinct breaking point separating the period of Colonialism with sovereignty. Lincoln wrote that this breaking point defined the U.S. not only as a sovereign state but also that it marked the birth of a new Nation. Canada, on the other hand, has not experienced such a history. Canada has only gained its independence gradually, and Anglo-Canada still maintains distinct cultural and linguistic ties to the United Kingdom (the queen is still on the money!) There is no distinct historical episode to which Canadians can point to and say "that is when we became Canadian." Also unlike the U.S., Canada has had to deal with a very deep linguistic and cultural cleavage within its own borders between the Anglos on one hand the Quebecois on the other. That a large portion of Canada has always embraced a distinct national identity is a confusing issue to all Canadians. What does it mean to be Canadian when other Canadians don't even think of themselves as such? How can a national identity exist in Canada if there is no real consensus on what that means? Thus, most Canadians have to try much harder than Americans to really get a sense of who they are. Some Anglo Canadians just consider themselves Anglos. The Quebecois have it all figured out. Others do it with Beer commercials or by simply asserting their Non-Americanness. The Jews, unable to find a stronger discourse of national identity, simply find it easier to embrace their Jewishness. I would bet that on average, Canadian Jews are far more Zionist than American Jews. This is all of course very arm-chairy, and I would have to conduct a lot of surveys to really figure out if it's true, so don't take my word for it.

Dave raised an interested question at the services. Realizing the relaxed approach Jesse took to the letter of the law in the Torah despite his firm faith in God, Dave asked how reform Jews are to determine which parts of the Torah to accept and which parts to ignore. He pointed out that if so much of the Torah and the Talmud is called into question, why are none of the passages which link the Jews to Israel questioned as such? He explained that the notion that certain gods ruled over specific patches of land was widespread in the ancient near east, particularly in the Mesopotamia, the land from which Abraham is supposedly to have come. I would also point out that the Egyptians held a different view of divine rule. In Egypt, certain gods ruled of specific domains of life. If these two lands are in someway related to the Jews, it seems as though the ancient Jewish conception of God, Israel and the 12 tribes was perhaps a combination of these two explanations of a god's role in the world. Jesse didn't really answer his question. I would say that the parts of the Torah and the Talmud that are omitted by most contemporaries because they don’t fit into our modern notions of morality or because they hinder the economy. Thus they are assumed to anti modern. The idea of Land and a people, as I have already explained, did fit quite well into the common sense of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and so it was never omitted. Nowadays, how well that notion fits into the norm is coming into question and so the passages about Israel and the Israelites perhaps seem a little archaic.

"There are strangers in the land of Israel"

Next we read a passage that was supposed to be a transition into what Jesse thought would be the more "liberal" and "moderate" section. After "proving" the unbroken uncontestable connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, it was time to approach a more sensitive topic. The passage implored us to " Let the stranger in your midst be to you as the native, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Jesse concluded by telling us that there were indeed strangers in the land of Egypt and that we need to understand that. While his implied sentiments of tolerance and respect are nice, this sort of attitude is still condescending and somewhat sick. Sure Jesse own views on them matter might not be considered extremely radical, but at heart they are no different than the self righteous disregard that so many religious and secular Zionists have for the Palestinians.

"That's the Tel Aviv bubble…you're in it"

That night we went to see a play in a hip theater somewhere in Tel Aviv. We entered the place and walked through a hallway that was lined with crazy photo artwork…pierced punks on the streets of tel aviv, naked women with their heads in toilets and an old guy with a beard and a vagina. Everyone was freaked out by this, not least of all myself. It was a little too Greenwich Village for me, but my friend Alana, a girl who was going to art school in NY loved it. While it was somewhat shocking, some of it was still interesting, particularly the closeup of an uncircumcised penis with a Star of David tattoo on the stomach above it. It's a little raw, but you know, it makes some sense for Israel today especially in Tel Aviv.

The play we saw was a rendition of the biblical story of Tamar. Pretty much, Tamar is to have a child with Er, but Er is slain by God so Er's brother Onan has to have a kid with Tamar to preserve his brother's line. However, Onan doesn't like this arrangement so he "spills his seed on the ground" to avoid impregnating Tamar. God is angry and so he slays Onan. Onan's father, Judah, has one more son for Tamar but he is young and so she is commanded to wait until he is old enough to impregnate her and to preserve Er's line. So Tamar is sent away, to live with her family, she can't do otherwise and she cannot marry another man unless Judah releases her. So she dresses up like a prostitute and seduces Judah, who gets her pregnant. When Judah finds out that Tamar is pregnant, he is angry and brings her forth so that he can command her death, which he has a legal right to do. However, Tamar reveals to Judah that she was the prostitute and that she is pregnant with his child, thus preserving the family line. It is later revealed that this began the line which eventually led to King David. The story is traditionally interpreted to show the way in which God used the imperfect Tamar to turn Judah from his (apparent) wickedness to righteousness. Tamar forced Judah to face up to his responsibilities (to keep his line alive) instead of passing them off to his sons. Tamar is imperfect because she is a Canaanite, but she has a firm sense of her duty as a wife and for Judah's duty as a Jew. Accordingly, she is always firm of mind, and takes matters into her own hands to fulfill these various obligations.

The play we saw presented this story by using two ballet dancers who attached these puppets to their torsos. The puppets upper body and head was a puppet, but the hands and legs were the dancer's. The heads could also come off the body and could be used for some interesting effects, like when Tamar and Er were falling in love and the heads were swirling around in the air etc. The faces of the puppets were unchanged the entire time, but the actors' expressions and body language ranged from tortured, to jubilant, to somber throughout the play.

In this version though, the focus of the story is no longer on Judah and his transformation, but on Tamar and her own personal experience which is completely rethought. Central to the play and its reinterpretation of the Biblical story was this separation between the actor and the puppet that only this medium seems to provide. With the puppet, the actor was able to portray the deep sense of obligation and duty which is very prevalent in the biblical story. With their own bodies, though, the actors were able to bring out the feelings and emotions associated with these acts which are unaddressed in torah. This is particularly true of Tamar who is visually the most tormented by the various events and their implications for what she has to do. This distinction is central to modern Jewish life in Tel Aviv in particular and in Israel as a whole. These Jews are caught between a world in which they are told that they have an obligation to their ancestors and to their history and a world in which they only want to live as human beings, unbound by such regulations that constrict them physically and emotionally. This is what the director was trying to show us, I think, and the story and the medium were really a perfect choice for doing so. Like Tamar, Jews and Judaism face a tug of war between the modern world in which their own desires and emotions should have free reign and a long history of tradition to which they are expected to adhere. I anticipate that this question, how Jews reconcile their history and modern world, will be approached quite differently in Jerusalem. Maybe ill see some of this when I go there tomorrow.

After the play we went to a mall, like any other mall, for some food. I ate at Sbarro. On the bus, Ronnie the tour guide told us a little more about the City. That it is constantly moving and that people often seem unconcerned for what is happening in the rest of the country. "business as usual in tel aviv"

Josh had some things to say at the mall. After the Independence hall experience yesterday, Josh told me that he was starting to have an identity crisis. He never considered himself particularly Jewish, he was just a guy who lived in NY, a musician and no different than any other New Yorker. Yesterday he was becoming confused. He was being told about his Judaism and what it means, and what sorts of things are required of him because of that identity which he cannot shed. None of these ideas ever factored into his life. Tonight he seems to have taken a step towards resolving the crisis. He asked me "what has Israel ever done for the world?" I said, well they have their place in the global economy, and they seem to do their part. He said that that's all bullshit and that he was starting to think that the state should never have even come into existence and that maybe it shouldn’t even exist now. I said there are lots of people in this country who are just trying to live their lives and that that sort of thinking can only be destructive in the end. He's started to decide that the whole thing is bullshit. He's very uncomfortable with the fact that there exists a place that has some role in his own identity that he can't control. He has nothing to do with Israel, why should Israel have anything to do with him? I would agree that people should be able to choose who they are, I wouldn't go so far as to say that logically leads to us saying that Israel has no right to exist.

Then again I used to think that Jews who didn’t at least nominally embrace their Judaism were being a little silly, as they really did have a lot to be proud of, so why not buy in? After that I thought that people were most influenced by their environment and that if they didn’t embrace their Judaism, it's only because they had found another way to define themselves that better suited their preferences. This trip is interesting though, because in showing everyone this big powerful and dynamic state, it really is providing some real incentives for all of the Jews who go on birthright to buy into their Jewish identity. It's hard to say objectively whether these incentives really do outweigh all others in any other environment anywhere else. My intuition tells me that they don't but it's really hard to say, and I guess it's up to everyone to decide on their own. Who knows.

Tomorrow in Jerusalem