The Shortcut Seduction

Israel’s Ministry of Absorption created several ads, aimed at the parents of Israelis living in the United States.  The point of the ads was to convince these parents that Israeli identity will be lost in the US and they ought to bring their children home.  

In one ad, Israeli grandparents are skyping with their children and granddaughter.  

Behind the grandparents is a lit Hanukkah menorah.  Grandma asks the little girl, “Do you know what holiday it is today?” and the little girl says, “Christmas.” 

The girl’s parents look at each other with sadness, and the grandparents look sad as well.  

The unseen narrator says the following:  “They will always remain Israeli.  Their children – no.  Help them return to Israel.” 

Another ad features a young couple coming back from a party.  The man sees his partner sitting next to a lit candle and says to her, assuming she’s interested in a romantic evening, “now I understand why you didn’t want to go to the party.”   Turns out she’s looking on her computer at a display for Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. 

The unseen narrator says the following:  “They will always remain Israeli.   Their partners won’t always know what that means.” 

The ads caused a lot of controversy in the US. 

Many American Jews were disturbed by the ads, feeling that they denigrated the commitment of American Jews.  The implication that a little Jewish girl raised in the US would blithely tell her grandmother that it’s Christmas was something many found offensive.

I understand the impulse that prompted these ads.  Many Israelis who remain in Israel are troubled by the assimilation they feel has taken place on the part of Israelis who have moved to America. 

But the ads are troubling because they simplify something which is hardly simple.

Jewish Identity and Israeli Identity are related, but not identical.  

There are Israeli traditions, naturally, that many non-Israeli Jews don’t fully grasp and there are Jewish traditions that many Israelis don’t fully grasp.

Those who created these ads were trying to find a shortcut to a solution for what they perceive as a problem, namely the emigration of Israelis to other places, in particular the United States.

Turns out, not only were many American Jews offended, but many Israelis found the ads patronizing and simplistic.

Rabbi Julie Schoenfeld, executive director of the Rabbinical Assembly, wrote an editorial in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz in which she challenged the Israeli community to confront Israeli identity and Jewish identity in an ongoing and deliberative way.  She opined that instead of the Ministry of Absorption, the real challenge of raising a generation of committed Israeli Jews belongs to the Ministry of Education. 

Indeed, many Israeli schools are taking on the challenge of fostering a strong nexus of Israeli and Jewish identity in the next generation of Israeli Jews.

Shortcuts are problematic if they short-circuit an issue instead of confronting it with the ongoing attention it deserves.

If only Israeli identity or Jewish identity were so simple that a few 30 second videos or a return flight to Israel would do the trick.

I recently discussed parenting with a group of people hosted in the house of one our members.  It was the third home series we’ve had, and the first session of this series.

It was a very lively exchange – we raised questions, offered some answers, and took a look at a few Jewish passages on the topic.

I began with two questions – the first, why do we have children?

Some great answers were given.  One person joked, “It was getting a little boring with just me and my husband.”  But there were more serious answers, including the gift of participating in the miracle of creating and nurturing life.

I then asked what qualities people want to see emerge in their children.  We came up with, among other things, independence, resilience, honesty and confidence.

For the next while, we looked at a few passages from Jewish sources as we considered what we ought to do as parents to maximize the likelihood that our children will grow to exemplify all the qualities we wish for them.

Everyone who has ever participated in the raising of children in any way has likely yearned for shortcuts.   We want to know the secret to how to get children to listen.  How to avoid sibling rivalry.  (Hint – space them at least 21 years apart).  How to ensure that children will have self-esteem.

Yet at the same time, we know there aren’t magic answers.  Many of these issues are complicated and evolve over a period of years.  If we stop a minute to think of our own relationships with our parents, and how they influenced us, we will probably realize that the path was hardly straightforward.

Parenting, like growing up, is circuitous, uncertain and ongoing.  All the generations are moving targets together.  It makes things challenging but also fun.

Fortunately for us, our central narrative, the Torah, describes people who are not perfect, whose lives evolve, and whose paths are hardly straightforward. 

We recently plunged into the story of Joseph and his brothers.  The Torah tells us outright that Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons.  Joseph’s brothers, we are told, hated him because of his dreams and because of his incendiary words.

When they sell him, and then later dip his shirt in blood to convince Jacob that he was killed by a wild beast, they seem to be motivated in equal parts by their anger at their brother and their anger at their father.

It’s quite a family story – they’re not exactly sitting around waiting for Daddy to say the blessing over the challah. 

It takes years of further trials and tribulations before some resolution is reached.  Joseph exacts some revenge on his brothers and the brothers, to differing degrees, demonstrate remorse.  But none of this happens quickly.  It occurs after years of dramatic twists and turns.

There’s no shortcut here.  In fact, the whole story of the emergence of the children of Israel is quite prolonged.  Only after several generations does the family of Israel emerge and then the excitement continues in Egypt for hundreds of years before the nation of Israel emerges.

I know that we live in the land of 150 characters and “you give us 22 minutes, we give you the world.”

And that’s all understandable and fine, so long as it’s the beginning and not the end.

1000 years ago, the great scholar Maimonides, also known as Rambam, crafted a major work of Jewish law that he believed would prevent people from having to navigate the so-called yam hatalmud, the tumultuous sea of the Talmud.  Read my work, the Mishne Torah, Maimonides claimed, and it will basically tell you what you need to know.

So far, so good.  Except that an ironic thing occurred.  You look at the version of his work as it evolved and notice something curious, even humorous, in a way.  Surrounding Maimonides’ passages are commentaries, written in response to what he wrote, that restore many of the contradictions and complex legal arguments of the Talmud that he tried so hard to resolve.

Shortcuts are helpful to a point but are seldom completely satisfying or successful.  Reality is too complicated.  The twists and turns remain.

Israeli, Jewish, American identity for that matter are too complicated, parenting, too complicated to be reduced to a set of simple propositions.

So we’ll continue to talk about all these things, and to engage them with humor, when appropriate, and seriousness, when appropriate.  We will likely make many mistakes and yesterday’s strategy may not work today as we continue to devote ourselves to achieving the best possible outcomes on life’s roller coaster.

I ask us not to take unhelpful refuge in the seduction of the shortcut. 

As we continue to devote ourselves to these trenchant issues and others, I want to offer us the blessing that we recite before we engage in Torah study.  We ackowledge God, source of blessing, who commands us לעסק בדברי תורה  la’asok b’divrei Torah – to engage in words of Torah.

I wish us the capacity in every in facet of our lives – la’asok – to engage, with all of our resources, and all of our strength, as the twists and turns continue.

Originally delivered on December 17, 2011 at Temple Israel of Great Neck