Good Saturday morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Must have coffee. Black and sweet.
364 days. Fate has it there is another day on the calendar before October 7 this year. One more day as if 365 weren’t too much already. Jewish holidays are here. Yom Kippur will arrive soon. My childhood holiday season is coming. Christmas. Another year. Time keeps on moving and hope remains.
I became more familiar with Jewish culture since I started using Threads. I raised the Arab-Israeli conflict months before 10/7, shortly after my arrival here, and it allowed me to engage with Jewish threaders from early on, especially with @lisaaronowatelier, and expand my knowledge. I found new books to read and went back to my reference texts… Quite a journey it is still. So much to learn, so little time. I remain a goy, yet in many ways I feel the Jewish people as my own.
I didn’t lose sight of the fight we’re on to save Democracy all along because it is connected to the fight against antisemitism. All this time I am also in awe of the ways so many of my Jewish thriends realize, as I do, there’s an absolute need to identify extreme religious beliefs as the fuel that keeps feeding hate. The secular me was pleased to find so many like minded souls who understand the limits of tolerance as much as the agnostic spiritual me was reassured by it.
Most religions have references to some form of intolerance towards the other alongside calls for understanding and inclusion. Millennial texts that can be twisted and turned to fit self centered people’s interests and turn paradise into an all exclusive resort only the chosen can access. Perhaps the story of the rabbi who was asked why did God create the atheist best describes what religion should be about and yet is not.
I have mentioned before our happiness depends on that of others. There’s no other reward in being kind and understanding, in helping others. No prize for doing the right thing. Many atheists will find themselves in heaven before most religious people ever reach its gates, if there is such a thing. And yet organized religion is like a club with a secret handshake that frowns upon the unknowing. There’s no humanity in it, if you think about it.
What is the point in exacerbating selfishness? Isn’t the invariable result the demonization of all others? Even some atheists seem to have a secret handshake too and frown even harder upon those who believe in what they don’t. In the end, not believing is in itself a system of belief and a sort of religion. We all believe in something, after all. Me, I believe in humanity. I believe in the beauty each of us holds inside. I believe in that which creates music.
I search for meaning and purpose and justice. I don’t expect simple answers to complex questions but I do believe in absolutes derived from facts. Truth is itself the result of a system of beliefs so one could argue there are many, yet what should guide us in our quest for truth is the belief facts matter more than anything and are the ground our convictions should stand on. We may not like them but we can’t deny them. Once you realize this truth all others will follow.
I am torn by facts. They’re inescapable unless you wrap them in a blanket of beliefs meant to give you the illusion of comfort, something you feel better about. It’s tempting and most of us do it all the time. I try not to but I do as well. Facts can be devastating. They are the thorns on the rose of life we wish weren’t so sharp or even gone. But there are no roses without thorns except those you make for yourself so you can find a way to hold them without pain.
Isn’t that the essence of religion after all? The manipulation of reality into a painless illusion we can deal with? The denial of acceptance for our own benefit. All sacred words are but words we read in a state of denial; words, such as these you now are reading, are meant to make you think without prejudice. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Judaism appeals to me. Of all religions I know it is the most conflicted one and in itself an endless struggle.
But it’s still a religion and as such it suffers from the same twists and turns some people use to manipulate it into their own interests. Very often I read about how Islam teaches hatred yet it does not. Some people twisted and turned it into it and got away with murder. Perception becomes reality and reality becomes fact. We may not like it but we can’t deny it. Such twists and turns are what we call radicalism and its existence converts spirituality into the material world.
When you analyze what is happening in the world today make sure you base your analysis on facts, no matter how they make you feel. For 364 days we have been asking for the hostages in Gaza to be released. Many of them never would alive. Some may still make it. Hope remains. Thousands of people have been living the horrors of war for 364 days in a way we did not expect but the fact is war is the only reality they have ever known. That’s what is wrong with this picture.
The world woke up to this reality on October 7, 2023. And we don’t like it. Personally, I don’t like the way it’s going. I don’t like people I despise must make things right but it’s a fact I can’t ignore. I can only hope this terrible mess will bring about a better future even if I don’t like how it is unraveling. Change will come whether we like it or not; all we can do is try to make it happen based on facts and grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.
There are perverted reasons behind the ongoing war in Israel. We all know what they are and who benefits from it. But there are opportunities that were not possible before it. Opportunities for peace and a better future that only this war could produce. Ignoring those opportunities and missing them because we don’t like the facts involved is a mistake. As it’s a mistake to ignore the fact Israel became in 1948. Like it or not, denying that fact will not set anyone free.
The same goes for the Palestinian Arabs who are themselves a fact. Denying it won’t set anyone free either. Couple those two facts alone and you will discover things you don’t like and wish were different. They’re not and we can’t wish them away. Wishing them away is what radicals want. Picking sides only works if you strip yourself of any truth rooted in fact free beliefs even if the sides are good and evil. There’s nothing esoteric about it, nothing religious either.
The undeniable truth is the fact 364 days went by and many times during those days opportunities were missed to take the hostages home. I don’t know how many more will go by still but I know we can’t give up. Perhaps Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin illustrate this reality the best. They lost their son Hersh to this terrible reality. A senseless loss. Yet they persevere for the sake of others in which hope still lives and in a country at war for its own survival they hope for peace.
The hostages became the image of everything that is wrong with this situation and everything we don’t like about it. The undeniable fact we cannot ignore. Perhaps we should start there and trace our steps back to where it started, fact by fact. Maybe if we do that we can find a way out.
Try to remain strong and hopeful.
Shabbat shalom.
