to Xiu
I went to college late in life. They call it "Adult Learning" in the States nowadays. They called it strange back then, over here. We're catching up with our American cousins like everything else and there are more people my age advancing their educations at advanced ages.
I was different than my fellow students not only because I was older than most of them, but also in that I didn't have any particular reason for being there. I studied things that had no connection whatsoever to how I made my living and with no intention of using it in the future. Like a seamstress buying a welder.
Now I see that the "reason" was how I saw myself. I didn't feel as good as those guys that had done the smart thing and finished college before setting out in life. They never rubbed my nose in it and I suspected that I was every bit as intelligent as they are, but nevertheless that's how I felt.
Now days they have funny words for the reasons I had for going back to school – "self validation" and "peer recognition", but there are old fashioned words for it too. Vanity. Ego. I would knock myself out cramming my brain with stuff I didn't care about in order to impress profs that didn't care about me. After exams they'd post our scores on a board outside the administration office, and like everyone else I would search for the numbers beside my ID number to get the verdict. It was never enough for me to have done well – if it wasn't the best I walked away disappointed. Even then I knew how pathetic it was, how vain, but I couldn't help myself. And the worst part was that I didn't dare tell anyone because everyone hates the smart kid.
Donald Miller talks about the ol' lifeboat dilemma in his book "Looking For God Knows What". Imagine this lifeboat and there's a young mother and her baby, an aged WWII war hero, an escaped convict, a scientist who can find a cure for cancer – and you. Only 5 people can stay in the lifeboat, six is too many and the boat will go down with all aboard. Who do you kick out?
Nobody wants to chuck out the baby, and by default that means the mother is safe. If you keep the scientist there's the bonus of saving millions of cancer patients. It's not right to kick out the war hero (Even though some people do because he's old and besides those hero types jump out to save the others anyway.) That leaves you and the convict. Some people want to keep the convict in the boat because they want to give him a chance to redeem himself (a very noble notion). But that's what it comes down to; most of us are trying to prove that we're more worthy than the criminal and deep down we know that we're not because deep down we all know that we're all sinners.
Miller says that this lifeboat mentality is the root of all the rottenness and sickness in society. We are all competing for a place in the lifeboat, scared to death that our peers will find out what we already know – that we don't deserve a seat with mothers and scientists and heroes. We need self validation and recognition like lifesavers to save ourselves. Vanity is fear.
The funny thing is that it turns out that there's room for everyone in God's lifeboat. – even for the ones that don't deserve it. And if you realize that, there's no need to compete, no reason to validate or be recognized. You can go to college, and even excel, if you want – or not. It doesn't matter because you have a reserved seat in the lifeboat.
I kept my marks a secret all through college. Outstanding students, or rather ordinary students with outstanding GPAs, get diplomas with some funny Latin words added on. "Summa cum something". They get called up first at the graduation ceremony, and since my last name came first alphabetically, I was the first in my class called up to receive my diploma. My cover was blown. My friends were aghast. I felt a little sheepish.
I don't know Latin. I bet those funny words on my diploma mean something like "really vain" or "huge ego". I hope I got more from college than a piece of paper with funny Latin words on it. I hope I learned something.
Because now I'm at a crossroads, and it looks like I'm going to do it again, if unwillingly. I hope that if I do it again I will do it different. Maybe if I put my mind to it I will even be able to fail once or twice.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A Cross between Oregon and Israel
Until last week, I had only ventured beyond Israel's borders to visit my family in Oregon. Last week we took a trip to Croatia.
Croatia is like a cross between Israel and Oregon. Mountains plunge into the Adriatic Sea on rocky cliffs under evergreen forests like Oregon's highway 101 on the coast, but the olive groves and whitewashed houses with red tile roofs stacked around small fishing harbors are Mediterranean.
Inland the deciduous trees were in autumn colors, but the paths and streams underneath were still sunless and damp like Oregon's rainforests. My photos of the countryside could have been taken from an album of the farm country where I was raised.
But unlike secularized Oregon, Croatia is more like Israel. Religion is everywhere. Croatians are devout Roman Catholics and certainly not ashamed of it. They adorn their streets and women with crucifixes; no village is without its church and it seems like every corner, whether uninhabited islands in the sea or isolated mountaintop, is the site of an ancient monastery.
The Croatians we encountered were rather reserved, like Oregonians. In fact, in general, they were kind of grouchy. Of course, we did meet some nice ones, but most of them work in the tourist industry, and as Yael pointed out, it's their business to be friendly. But if Croatians aren't gregarious, we were impressed by their order and honesty (Not qualities Israelis are known for.)
Croatians and Israelis have one thing in common: they are not strangers to war. We met a man in Dubrovnik that immediately took to us once he discovered we are Israelis. It turns out that he is the descendant of Jews that were forced to convert to Christianity in Spain. Somehow his ancestors had made their way to Dalmatia. We asked him about his family. He smiled and said that, like us, he had two girls and a son. Then his eyes saddened and he added that the boy had been killed in the bombardment of the city during the civil war in former Yugoslavia during the 90's.
Croatians like tourists. The nice thing about tourists is that they always go back where they came from and they always leave behind money. Apparently, Croatians have issues with people that aren't tourists and aren't Croatian. During the Holocaust, even the Nazis were shocked by the brutality which their Croatian collaborators carried out the elimination of Jews, Gypsies and Serbs. (Although they no doubt agreed with the objective.) A Jew had better odds of survival in Nazi Germany than in Croatia.
While Israel receives a lot of attention for its treatment of Palestinians, the western world seems to have overlooked what has and is going on in its backyard. In the 1990's ethnic Serbs in Croatia were 'persuaded' to become tourists.
On the road to Plitzvice National Park you pass by one abandoned farmstead after another, each one mute evidence of ethnic cleansing. The irony of it is that Croatians are too xenophobic to let the Serbian owners return home, but too stuck on law and order to let squatters take their property. Being as clannish as Jews and as straight-laced as Oregonians can be a weird combination. (In contrast, while much of the criticism of Israel for discrimination is justified, the fact remains that Arabs make up 20% of her citizens, an active and vocal minority in Israel society.)
Until now, we had never gone abroad as a family except to visit my family in Oregon. I rented a camper and we traveled from place to place in Dalmatia, never knowing where we would end up at the end of the day. Being observant, we brought and prepared our own food in a country famous for its cuisine. The idea wasn't to just to get away and relax. We had fun, but the idea was to present ourselves with a challenge far from home in order to bring us closer together as a family. With Maayan being an adult and Netanel only two years away from his army service, this was perhaps the last opportunity to do that.
Croatia is like a cross between Israel and Oregon. Mountains plunge into the Adriatic Sea on rocky cliffs under evergreen forests like Oregon's highway 101 on the coast, but the olive groves and whitewashed houses with red tile roofs stacked around small fishing harbors are Mediterranean. 
Inland the deciduous trees were in autumn colors, but the paths and streams underneath were still sunless and damp like Oregon's rainforests. My photos of the countryside could have been taken from an album of the farm country where I was raised. 
But unlike secularized Oregon, Croatia is more like Israel. Religion is everywhere. Croatians are devout Roman Catholics and certainly not ashamed of it. They adorn their streets and women with crucifixes; no village is without its church and it seems like every corner, whether uninhabited islands in the sea or isolated mountaintop, is the site of an ancient monastery.The Croatians we encountered were rather reserved, like Oregonians. In fact, in general, they were kind of grouchy. Of course, we did meet some nice ones, but most of them work in the tourist industry, and as Yael pointed out, it's their business to be friendly. But if Croatians aren't gregarious, we were impressed by their order and honesty (Not qualities Israelis are known for.)
Croatians and Israelis have one thing in common: they are not strangers to war. We met a man in Dubrovnik that immediately took to us once he discovered we are Israelis. It turns out that he is the descendant of Jews that were forced to convert to Christianity in Spain. Somehow his ancestors had made their way to Dalmatia. We asked him about his family. He smiled and said that, like us, he had two girls and a son. Then his eyes saddened and he added that the boy had been killed in the bombardment of the city during the civil war in former Yugoslavia during the 90's.
Croatians like tourists. The nice thing about tourists is that they always go back where they came from and they always leave behind money. Apparently, Croatians have issues with people that aren't tourists and aren't Croatian. During the Holocaust, even the Nazis were shocked by the brutality which their Croatian collaborators carried out the elimination of Jews, Gypsies and Serbs. (Although they no doubt agreed with the objective.) A Jew had better odds of survival in Nazi Germany than in Croatia.
While Israel receives a lot of attention for its treatment of Palestinians, the western world seems to have overlooked what has and is going on in its backyard. In the 1990's ethnic Serbs in Croatia were 'persuaded' to become tourists.
On the road to Plitzvice National Park you pass by one abandoned farmstead after another, each one mute evidence of ethnic cleansing. The irony of it is that Croatians are too xenophobic to let the Serbian owners return home, but too stuck on law and order to let squatters take their property. Being as clannish as Jews and as straight-laced as Oregonians can be a weird combination. (In contrast, while much of the criticism of Israel for discrimination is justified, the fact remains that Arabs make up 20% of her citizens, an active and vocal minority in Israel society.)
Until now, we had never gone abroad as a family except to visit my family in Oregon. I rented a camper and we traveled from place to place in Dalmatia, never knowing where we would end up at the end of the day. Being observant, we brought and prepared our own food in a country famous for its cuisine. The idea wasn't to just to get away and relax. We had fun, but the idea was to present ourselves with a challenge far from home in order to bring us closer together as a family. With Maayan being an adult and Netanel only two years away from his army service, this was perhaps the last opportunity to do that..
My family is like Croatia in a way. We are a cross between Israel and Oregon, a little bit of both. Oregonians are known to be an easy going and orderly people, but I have more than once noted that they are capable of saying and doing the meanest things in the nicest way. Israelis are outgoing and they mean well, but they are often abrasive and rough around the edges.
We have a little of Israel and Oregon in us, but that can mean any number of things. Its up to us to decide what we want to take from each.
I know its wrong to make generalizations about entire nations, but its only natural. I met a woman at Plitzvice that is from Wisconsin but has lived in Croatia for a few years. I remarked that the Croatians seem very honest, but they aren't very friendly, and that Israelis are outgoing, but they aren't always straight.
"Don't you prefer the first over the last; you know, being honest more than being nice?" she asked me.
I thought about it.
"Actually, I prefer both."
We have a little of Israel and Oregon in us, but that can mean any number of things. Its up to us to decide what we want to take from each.
I know its wrong to make generalizations about entire nations, but its only natural. I met a woman at Plitzvice that is from Wisconsin but has lived in Croatia for a few years. I remarked that the Croatians seem very honest, but they aren't very friendly, and that Israelis are outgoing, but they aren't always straight.
"Don't you prefer the first over the last; you know, being honest more than being nice?" she asked me.
I thought about it.
"Actually, I prefer both."
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Saturday, October 04, 2008
One of Us
Neil was one of our neighbors when I was growing up. He was the mayor back then and went on to serve in a cabinet position in the White House and later was elected Governor. The kids in the neighborhood didn’t admire him because of his position, rather because he treated us as equals. A lot of grownups would ignore us, but Neil knew how to include everyone, large and small. To this day we remember how he would come home from work at City Hall and join in on a basketball game with the neighborhood kids, along with his bodyguards. It was an honor to be the mayor’s neighbor, but we liked him because he was a regular guy. He was one of us.
Neil moved into the governor’s mansion more or less around the time I made aliyah to Israel and I didn’t have much contact with him after that. In the late Eighties he retired from politics. The last time I saw him was not far from here while he was on vacation with his grown children by the shores of the Kinneret. I asked him if he thought he’d ever go back into politics. No, he said. He wanted to invest his time with his family and go in to private business.
Then last spring, like Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, a skeleton in Neil's closet came to life. The local press uncovered an affair he’d had with a neighborhood girl, a year younger than I, back in the days when he was mayor. Overnight he went from being one of the state’s most outstanding leaders of all time to pariah and yesterday's admirers were falling over each other to throw the first stone.
Bill Clinton once said about the Monica Lewinski affair that he did it “because I could.” At first I thought his remark was banal, but on second thought I see how wise it is. That arrogant cliché Americans love so much, "because I can", sums up the number one reason why humans sin. The author and theologian C .S. Lewis once wrote that it’s conceivable that a lowly clerk could be more evil than Hitler, the difference being that the former can’t act on his hatred as did the later. If we’re not caught with our hands in the cookie jar, it’s not for not liking cookies. We like cookies, but the shelf is too high or the lid too tight, and besides – Mom’s got eyes in the back of her head. And lets be honest; most men don't get entangled in lewd sex scandals, but not due to their high moral standards rather because they don’t have the charisma and the status to seduce beautiful young girls in the first place nor the money and connections to get away with it.
The Torah tells about Judah who leaves the family business. With his own two hands he builds himself financially and accumulates political clout – only to stumble into a liaison with his daughter in law Tamar. He uses all the resources and connections at his disposal to cover his tracks, but the truth comes out. Tamar hints not so subtly that she isn’t about to burn and let him avoid taking responsibility. Finally he gives up. “She’s more righteous than I” (צדקה ממני), he says. Seemingly, Judah’s hit bottom at this point – a proud tribal chieftain humiliated. But with those two words (in Hebrew) he regained his humanity. He returned to his family in shame and was again just another one of Jacob's sons. But Judah’s moment was still ahead of him. It was Judah that was willing to sacrifice his freedom and life for the sake of his brothers. Our sages ask why Judah, and not Joseph, was chosen to be the father of kings and the Messiah. Joseph was greater than Judah in all ways except for one – repentance. Joseph, the proud and honored leader, couldn’t be to his brothers what Judah was – one of them.
With the story about to break, Neil called a press conference.
I hope that on Yom Kippur this year my friend will finally find the tranquility he’s yearned for thirty odd years. Perhaps he will never regain the respect that he once had, but when he took upon himself the shame of his deeds, even if unwillingly, he regained something else – his humanity. On Yom Kippur he will simply be a mere human being pleading for his soul before his creator, like all of us.
And that’s what I always liked about him anyway, that he was one of us.
Gmar Hatima Tova
Neil moved into the governor’s mansion more or less around the time I made aliyah to Israel and I didn’t have much contact with him after that. In the late Eighties he retired from politics. The last time I saw him was not far from here while he was on vacation with his grown children by the shores of the Kinneret. I asked him if he thought he’d ever go back into politics. No, he said. He wanted to invest his time with his family and go in to private business.
Then last spring, like Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, a skeleton in Neil's closet came to life. The local press uncovered an affair he’d had with a neighborhood girl, a year younger than I, back in the days when he was mayor. Overnight he went from being one of the state’s most outstanding leaders of all time to pariah and yesterday's admirers were falling over each other to throw the first stone.
Bill Clinton once said about the Monica Lewinski affair that he did it “because I could.” At first I thought his remark was banal, but on second thought I see how wise it is. That arrogant cliché Americans love so much, "because I can", sums up the number one reason why humans sin. The author and theologian C .S. Lewis once wrote that it’s conceivable that a lowly clerk could be more evil than Hitler, the difference being that the former can’t act on his hatred as did the later. If we’re not caught with our hands in the cookie jar, it’s not for not liking cookies. We like cookies, but the shelf is too high or the lid too tight, and besides – Mom’s got eyes in the back of her head. And lets be honest; most men don't get entangled in lewd sex scandals, but not due to their high moral standards rather because they don’t have the charisma and the status to seduce beautiful young girls in the first place nor the money and connections to get away with it.
The Torah tells about Judah who leaves the family business. With his own two hands he builds himself financially and accumulates political clout – only to stumble into a liaison with his daughter in law Tamar. He uses all the resources and connections at his disposal to cover his tracks, but the truth comes out. Tamar hints not so subtly that she isn’t about to burn and let him avoid taking responsibility. Finally he gives up. “She’s more righteous than I” (צדקה ממני), he says. Seemingly, Judah’s hit bottom at this point – a proud tribal chieftain humiliated. But with those two words (in Hebrew) he regained his humanity. He returned to his family in shame and was again just another one of Jacob's sons. But Judah’s moment was still ahead of him. It was Judah that was willing to sacrifice his freedom and life for the sake of his brothers. Our sages ask why Judah, and not Joseph, was chosen to be the father of kings and the Messiah. Joseph was greater than Judah in all ways except for one – repentance. Joseph, the proud and honored leader, couldn’t be to his brothers what Judah was – one of them.
With the story about to break, Neil called a press conference.
“How can such behavior be erased when the damage to others and to myself
lives on? I have sat in my place of worship each year at Yom Kippur reading in
silence, searching for personal peace. And I have found that the answer to my
question is that it can’t be erased.”
I hope that on Yom Kippur this year my friend will finally find the tranquility he’s yearned for thirty odd years. Perhaps he will never regain the respect that he once had, but when he took upon himself the shame of his deeds, even if unwillingly, he regained something else – his humanity. On Yom Kippur he will simply be a mere human being pleading for his soul before his creator, like all of us.
And that’s what I always liked about him anyway, that he was one of us.
Gmar Hatima Tova
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