Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Overcoming Challenges
Reflect on the challenges we discussed in class that faced Bnei Yisrael soon after their return to Eretz Yisrael: Enemies thwarting building efforts, Royal opposition, Unfulfilled hopes regarding Zerubavel and sovereignty and building of Mikdash, Despair over comparison between First and Second Beit HaMikdash, Lack of funds/economic uncertainty, Lack of prophecy/inspiration/leadership, Small number of returnees, Weak Jewish life/community. Choose one of these challenges and discuss how it applies to the Jewish community today. How is the challenge holding us back today? How can we move beyond it? What do we need to do to overcome the obstacle and achieve our goal? We don't have Chaggai, Zechariah and Malachi today - what assets do we have?
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Royal opposition. While we may not have kings and queens today we do have governments. So many Jews live in Israel today, we are running the country and we have a strong army. Yet so many leaders from countries over the entire world look at Israel with disgust. They think that the Jews took the land. They believe it should be Palestine. They do not like that we are building up Israel. If they could they would send the Jews out of Israel as fast as they can.
ReplyDeleteWe should not let this challenge get to us. We should all still move to Israel. We should not give up. The entire world can be against us yet we should still remember that Israel is our land, our home. We don't give up that easily. We may not have Chaggi, Zechariah and Malachi but we have so many other things that can help us threw are challenges. There are many Jewish leaders that can give us hope and encouragement that what we are doing is right. We have a strong army that shows countless time what it is capable of. We are well protected and we have god on our side. We own this land!
Weak Jewish life/community
ReplyDeleteNow, I’m not going to be the person to say that I think Israel has ‘weak Jewish life’- that place oozes Jewishness from every end. It is a Jewish state. In many places in Israel, stores are closed on Shabbat. Marriage has to be done in a Jewish fashion. I mean, really- it’s a Jewish state. Israel doesn’t lack Jews, per-se.
Yet, I still think that it’s fair to say that the Jewish life in Israel can be strengthened. At Bronfman this summer we spent a lot of time talking about Israel, Judaism, Judaism in Israel, and Judaism out of Israel. Throughout our many conversations, I came to a realization I had never thought of before: there are people who prefer ‘American Judaism’ to ‘Israeli Judaism’. Why? Because they feel like Israel you’re either “dati”, “religious”, or “chiloni”, secular. What about the people who fall in the middle?
A lot of kids on Bronfman were so Zionistic and love Israel so much, but said that they couldn’t see themselves living in Israel because of the restrictions on the type of Judaism that exists there. What about the reform and conservative Zionist Jews? What about the more liberal Orthodox Jews whose ideas don’t fall into place with the rabbinic authorities of the country? Where do they fall into place?
I believe that Israel will progress towards being a place where all Jews will feel comfortable living in. But in order for this to happen, some of these passionate Jews need to take that leap and move to Israel, make aliyah, and fight for some of their rights so more Jews will follow.
Yes, we don’t have Chaggai, Zechariam or Melachi, but we do have young Jews who are really passionate about the state of Israel. I think they are one of our biggest assets. I think they need to be learning and growing and moving to Israel, getting involved in politics there, so that they can work within the system to create more open policies. Once small steps are made, more and more people will feel freer to move to Israel, and fewer people will say things like, “I like American Judaism better than Israeli Judaism.”
There shouldn’t be such a thing. Judaism should be Judaism. And the best sort of Judaism should be in Israel.
Small number of returnees:
ReplyDeleteAfter Coresh made his declaration and allowed the Jews to return to Israel after a long and agonizing exile from Israel, only a small number of Jews actually returned to our homeland. In class, we were stunned. Why would any Jews choose to stay in Exile? Home come they weren’t running to pack their bags the second Coresh made this declaration? Having to leave their homeland was painful and heartbreaking, why would they not return to Israel and re-establish the Jewish presence there? They are valid questions, and they are just as valid for people in the present. The question is the same and the problem is the same, but we are finding more ways to answer it. There are so many reasons as to why more Jews live outside of Israel rather than in our homeland even though we are finally able to actually live a Jewish life there. Some people can’t leave their jobs here or find that the economic benefits here are far too great to leave. Others are concerned for their safety or just can’t seem to push themselves to pick up their already established lives and just move to another country. For me, at least, I’ve lived my whole life in this country and don’t know if I could just pick up and move to another country with such a different culture and adapt to such a different lifestyle. The reasons and excuses are neverending--the food, the culture, the safety, the money. Even though we are free to move to Israel whenever we want, we choose not to. We are in the same situation as the Jews who did not return to Israel after being exiled by the Persians.
How is this holding us back? We are not able to become a truly unified nation until we’re all together. We would not be as vulnerable if we were unified. We are a strong country and a strong people, but we are so much stronger when we’re all together. Some people even think that the Mashiach can’t come until all the Jews return to Israel. The exile isn’t truly over until we all return to Israel. We can’t even fulfill all the Mitzvot until we live in the Holy Land. Fortunately, there are many organizations that are helping Jews make Aliyah and make new lives for themselves in Israel. Organizations like Nefesh B’Nefesh have been extremely successful in getting people to make Aliyah while also helping them to settle into their new lives easily. If we can ensure that organizations like these stay active and the country stays safe, I think that Jews will continue to make Aliyah at an increased rate. As for now, we need to make making Aliyah our goal. Maybe not for right now, but we should always keep in mind that living in Israel is the ultimate goal.
Enemies Thwarting Building Efforts:
ReplyDeleteWhat stands on the Temple Mount today? That's right, the Dome of the Rock. This is a perfect example of an enemy of ours trying to stop our building efforts to build a third Beit HaMikdash. This one is going to be a hard one to over come, because according to a lot of people, we don't have good enough proof that our temple belongs on that mountain. It is also hard because we don't have the best relationship with the people who worship in it. I think that the best we can do is to wait it out. When G-d wants to send Mashiach, I believe that that is when we will be able to build the third Beit HaMikdash.
Just like the time of Chaggai, we are staring at our enemies taking over our "property" everyday. We have the Kotel, which is great because it was the only part of the old city left standing, but it wasn't even a part of the Beit HaMikdash itself. We cannot even lay the foundations of a Beit HaMikdash, like they did in Chaggai's time. I think that this is the main challenge that we are facing today with regards to building the Temple again.
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ReplyDeleteLack of Inspiration/Prophecy/Leadership:
ReplyDeleteWhen we learned the beginning of Chaggai, we talked about how life in Israel after the Babylonian exile would be completely different because prophecy would be gone. The people would have to learn how to live their lives without relying on prophecy. However, the prophets were the people’s link to G-d. Without those leaders to guide them, they were lost. Throughout the ages, the Jews have been, as a whole, leaderless. Yes, there were many great rabbis and many great Jews in general. However, we have not had another Moshe or Yehoshua since the time of the first Beit Hamikdash. In my mind, leaders provide inspiration. Inspiration leads to guidance. Guidance leads to action. Action motivates others. Without one leader to unify the people, the cycle of inspiration and motivation is broken. This leads into the parallel problem of today.
The Jews alive today have never heard a prophecy. In fact, if anyone had heard a true prophecy, they probably would not have believed it. On that same note, Jews today have split into different groups that revere different leaders. For the Chassidim, their rebbe is their leader. Other groups also have their different leaders. Unfortunately, this recipe creates a world in which Jews not united and even more Jews are not inspired to take action. Recently, I saw a statistic that said that, in the next few decades, more Jews will be lost to assimilation than were lost in the Holocaust. This number is frightening, but also very telling of today’s problems. Without unity under one leader and without inspiration or motivation, how can we be expected to succeed?
Unfulfilled hopes regarding Zerubavel and sovereignty and building of Mikdash:
ReplyDeleteI think we often find that we have hopes and expectations and they are let down. Like we saw in Ezra, once they were allowed to go back to Israel they were let down and disappointed that they didn't have sovereignty and the Mikdash wasn't as great as it once was.
It applies to the Jewish community today - both in America and in Israel. In America, we think that since we have the freedom to practice our religion we have total control over our environment and we can make it what we want. Some extreme Jews hope that we can control our environment and eliminate all of the outside world while only focusing on Judaism. However, their hopes are unfulfilled: the outside world plays a role in our roles just as much as the religious world does.
In Israel, although we have our own land we are often struggling with our neighbors. Our hope would be that we have complete control over our land and that no one would interfere with it. But in our reality, our hopes are unfulfilled.
This holds us back because just like anything we focus on it so much and it distracts us from more important things. When we're so disappointed that our hopes aren't fulfilled it makes it harder to focus on the positive things that we do have (religious freedom and land in Israel).
I think a way to move beyond it would be to focus more on the positive things. If we focus more on the things we do have and how to expand them, it could help us move on from the things that we don't have and maybe eventually we can achieve the things that we don't have.
We do have religious freedom and we do have land in Israel - even though we don't have any of the Neviim, we can focus on these things and expanding them.
Royal opposition can be related to the opposition of most of the world's leaders regarding Israel today. Just like the royal opposition of this time, many world leaders either are coerced into protesting Israel by their citizens and groups in the region, or the leader may have a very anti-Israel stance that is backed by the rest of the country. People are always making bad comments about Israel and try to influence other people to not buy their products or disadvantage Israel militarily, economically, or otherwise. The anti-Israel vibe is almost cult-like: it spreads rapidly and have a large following. It seems very difficult to move beyond such an issue, but through intense spread of ideas and knowledge, it may be possible to inform more people about what is really happening and exposing the ever present bias. The assets we have are a group of devoted and dedicated people who are informed and can try to spread their ideas to as many people as possible. The internet can be a big help, because it is easy to spread ideas in an understandable and widespread way.
ReplyDeleteLack of prophecy/inspiration/leadership
ReplyDeleteMany people are afraid of what is going to happen later in life. There is no way to know anymore. When there was prophecy the future wasn't necessarily unknown. There was a reason to keep moving forward, because you knew what was going to happen. Nowadays, we know nothing about the future. It can be very scary to not know what's going to happen next. Your motivation is purely based on faith and belief in G-d. Many people lack motivation, and they aren't inspired enough to find motivation to keep following G-d and holding through waiting for Moshiach to come. With no one there right in front of you guiding you and telling you what your next step should be for you to be okay and safe. Without that, people get confused as to what to do next without someone there guiding them down the right path. They have to find the right path on their own, and sometimes that can be difficult, scary, and challenging, and some people don't have the motivation to take that challenge.
Enemies stopping the building:
ReplyDeleteToday in Israel, there are constant attacks from our enemies, both verbal and physical, on everything Israel does. Attacks seem to focus in particular, though, on the settlements that Israel builds (some of which are whole cities at this point). At times, the media is filled with angry diatribes against the Israeli government for authorizing the building of these settlements. This is, quite obviously, an impediment to the full return of the Jewish People and our ability to live peacefully in our land, and we obviously don't have nevuah now to tell us how to deal with it.
There really seems to be no viable way to get around this obstacle. How do you convince someone that something is right when they're already completely and thoroughly convinced by someone else that it's wrong? And even before that, some of the arguments ARE valid arguments. There ARE people living there who would be kicked out of their homes with no place to live. This sounds very familiar, as we know about Jewish "settlers" themselves who have been kicked out of their own homes due to settlement freezes and stopping of construction. I think the difference to me, though, is that though it IS /our land/, and we should be able to build and live there, there ARE already people there. It may not be fair to us, and it may not be right, but they are people too. So who gets preference?
Though it seems to me to be pointless to talk about it, it seems like negotiations that actually have a chance of turning out results that can be worked with is the only way to go. Maybe the land could be split somehow. Maybe instead of annexing a whole area and having an extremely large group of Arabs suddenly become part of the population, smaller areas could be annexed, giving smaller groups of Arabs citizenship and rights at a time.
Of course, this would all depend on both sides actually being able to sit down and negotiate for real, turning out a viable result, instead of the farce it's been in the past.
Weak Jewish life/community:
ReplyDeleteJust as the Jewish peopled struggled with a weak sense of faith and community as they returned to build the second temple, Jews around the world today face similar struggles in maintaining a connection with G-d and having a strong sense of Jewish community. In modern times we do not have nevuah and it can become very difficult to find a connection with G-d with so many distractions of the modern world. When G-d is not visibly apparent or actively communicating with us through nevuah, Jewish life becomes weakened from a lack of faith, just as it was during the return.
Additionally, modern issues and politics further weaken the sense of community among Jews. In this day and age, shared faith is not enough. Jewish communities cannot stand strong because Jews continue to divide themselves up into sects and reject the views of their fellow Jews instead of embracing everyone of shared Jewish faith. A community cannot stand strong with so much fighting. Instead, the sense of Jewish community needs to be strengthened by creating a welcoming and open atmosphere instead of one that is tense and divided.
The sense of community of the returning Jews had been weakened through separation and lack of faith, and we are seeing the same struggles constantly arising in modern times. But, we have the necessary tools to mend Jewish life and community. We are capable of being supportive and accepting of one another and looking to our rabbis and teachers for guidance. Many of us simply lack the motivation and faith to do so. Hopefully one day we will use the tools available to us and mend the Jewish communities of the world.