Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:12 My name is Danielle Hartman and I'm the president of the Sholom Hartford. Today is Tuesday, December 29, 25. And this is for heaven sake, a podcast from the heartburn institutes I engage. Our theme for today is title two is in each edition of for heaven sake. Jessie Klein, a lady and senior research fellow at the Institute here in Jerusalem and myself, we'll be discussing a current issue central to Israel and the Jewish world. And then he let us stay and hang director of the Hartford faculty in North America. We'll explore with us how classical Jewish sources can enrich your understanding of the issue at the art. It is. We approach the Israel conversation as we do all our conversations from a perspective of Jewish values, seeking broad and deep engaged. Our aim is to encourage a series of respectful conversation on Israel, across political lines, promoting understanding and strengthening Jewish people COVID has brought out the best in Israel at the worst.
Speaker 1 00:01:11 Israel has already vaccinated hundreds of thousands of its citizens. And if the supply of the vaccine keeps the paces plan, we will be one of the first countries to achieve immunity as Israelis. We expect this, and this is consistent with our self perception as to people who get things done. And our efforts as a nation that takes care of its own with a strong social safety net, which includes national medical care education, putting world-class university education at a minimal cost and remarkable social services for people with disabilities. And yet there's another Israeli story about COVID. We are also one of the first countries to enter it with third lock. Then we have had one of the highest rates of infection of the world and the social solidarity. So crucial to achieving success against depend DEMEC has been woefully missing. Our government has been able to set up the complex structure needed to acquire, distribute the vaccine to all segments of the society, including the periphery, and yet is not able to implement, let alone enforce its own policies and stated regulations.
Speaker 1 00:02:16 You'll see. It's wonderful to be with you. Great to be with you. And Danielle were both post vaccination. Yes, there's good news and bad news to that. You know, that you'll see. Cause it Israel, they said elderly 60 and above. So I'm happy I got the vaccine, but I'm, I'm ambivalent about the classification. Well, we're 60 and above, but not elderly today's theme, as you know, was inspired by your recent op-ed in the times of Israel entitled to 10 yahoos to Israel. Now in your op-ed you focus principally on the 10 y'all's responsibility for this duality without discounting your claim in today's discussion. I want to go beyond the Tania and try to understand why, what and who else or what else are shaping this Israel of contradictions. Let's begin with the positive for a moment, with a good story. What we could call the Israel of novice. We're not the wealthiest or the most powerful of countries. We also don't have any special protects, you know, with Pfizer, why they believe we are having such initial success.
Speaker 2 00:03:26 This moment plays to at least two strengths in the Israeli national character. The first is our capacity to respond to short-term emergencies, especially emergencies that we define as life and death. And nobody's better than Israel in dealing with short term life and death missions. The second strength in our national character is the vitality of the social contract between citizens and our government. The Israeli government feels free to make demands of its citizens that no other Western government will make of its citizens. We are expected to instantly mobilize as a society. The reason that those demands are regarded by Israelis as legitimate is because we know that when it comes down to the crunch, our government will take care of the strength of the social contract is being played out here. The fact is that we all expect our government to be doing this. We expect Israel to be in the front rank of countries, getting the vaccine at this moment. We're proud of that, but we're not surprised because that's who we think of as who we are at our best that's who we are.
Speaker 1 00:04:48 So at our best, we are a country that knows that we can count on our government and our government knows that they could count on us. And when you put those together, you have both the government marshaling and you have a people marshaling, and we have what, the highest percentage of vaccination in the world per population I do, right, by the way, that's one of the most beautiful parts about Israeli society. I remember when I came back to Israel in the nineties and the Intifada was starting again and there were all these attacks and we were worried. I taught my kids when you're in danger, find a stranger. There is a sense that the public sphere is by and large, a safe sphere, especially when we add your first point in exceptional moments. We are a country when in danger, we're there for each other. And I think that's very powerful, but let's go even a little deeper. Why do you think so many Israelis themselves are stepping up to get the vaccine? The response of the society is remarkable
Speaker 2 00:05:51 That it has a lot to do with the Jewish ethos of medicine of trusting doctors. There's really something in the Israeli character. And I think it's the Jewish character. I'm only being half facetious here that, uh, we trust our doctors. We trust our version of, of Dr. Fowchee.
Speaker 1 00:06:12 It's not just trusted doctors. I would argue in the Jewish tradition, there is almost no anti science movement. Our tradition didn't make as many science claims and then posit some dichotomy between faith and reason in the same degree. As you see in some other religious traditions, to the extent of my mommy's, one of his great lines in his guide for the perplexed part two 25, he says that if Judaism appears to be contradicting reason, you know, that's not what it means. It's just you reading it wrong. There could be no place for a contradiction between our tradition and recent, and as a result for most of Jewish history, science was embraced by our tradition and was not threatened by it. And we just knew that we had to reinterpret. So this notion of trusting doctors, even though you were a little facetious, I think it hits to a very, very deep point to the nature of how our religion and science have interacted by and large. For most of our history,
Speaker 2 00:07:19 It connect very deeply with the issue of <inaudible> of saving of saving life. There's a lot of skepticism in Israel about many of our institutions. Uh, the connect said, uh, the police, the courts don't rate high in public trust, but the medical establishment, the army, they do rate high. And I think that there is this basic trust in Israel that when it comes to life and death issues, you show me the smoke. There, there are those on whom to depend. And if your government is going to tell you, this is a matter of life and death, you can trust that.
Speaker 1 00:08:00 I think there's another side that we got, we have to add in there. And that has to do with a core value in Israelis. Decide that value is that you should not be a fry that you should, I didn't say fryer in English, uh, sucker thou shalt not be a sucker is like one of the Cardinal sins in Israel and in the middle East in general, but it is real. We've defined it. And I saw this feeling when they started to start a documentary. It was really interesting. There wasn't enough for everybody the minute they started and say, okay, it's there and you weren't sure if you're going to get it second, that what they're giving it out and I'm going to be left out. So I think we also benefited this intimacy, this society of nobody, of both a combination of crisis centered management excellence at these moments, trusting that your government is serious trusting science, and also wanting to make sure that my neighbor, they got it and I didn't get it. So I think all of that led to created this really remarkable moment. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:09:06 Well, I think we're saying to Neil breaks down when it comes to our brothers and sisters in the Haredi community, one of the things that's really knowing at me these last few months is that we are seeing a subtle shift in the hierarchy of values of Jewish values in the front of community and their response to COVID till COVID, if you would have asked me, what is the ultimate four 80 value? I wouldn't have hesitated to say because Memphis saving life saving life is above any and every Halakah consideration, I can't say that with the same certainty anymore, because what we've seen in the <inaudible> response these last few months is that there is actually a value for them that is higher than <inaudible> nefesh. And that's Telmo Torah learning Torah, keeping their educational systems running. What you heard in the Haredi community over and over again was even during the Holocaust, we didn't stop illegally teaching our children tolerance.
Speaker 2 00:10:11 This is a moment of truth, not only for Israel. I think for every society where a Corona is holding up a mirror to us. And what we're saying is on the one hand, extraordinary efficiency in vaccinating and in saving lives and a breakdown in our ability to function as a unified society in the longterm. I think it has something to do with our ability to deal with short-term emergencies. One of the great strengths of the society is our ability to move in and out between States of emergency and States of normalcy. And you'll see it when there's a terror attack and a few hours later, you can go back to that, to the scene of the attack, not a trace that it was there. The scene of a terror attack is scrubbed clean. And I think that says a lot about Israel psychologically and how we have to cope when you know that in emergency can happen at any moment, you're always prepared to step in, but you're also, it's the flip side of it is you don't stay in a state of urgency. You look for the first escape hatch to go back to normal life. And I think we did that after the first lockdown. So what the first lock that was over, we declared victory. We marked the V and we went back to normal life and we have not been able to re inhabit that state of emergency ever since.
Speaker 1 00:11:39 Interesting. So for you, the primary cause here is both for our success and our failure. Really the same. There is a very strong social safety net here in Israel. Government is not part of the government is the solution, which is a beautiful thing. And the safety net is so broad. People are willing to use it. I think part of what happened here is that the solution to COVID, wasn't just going to come from government. The solution to COVID has to come from a certain sense of citizenship and collective responsibility on that level, not for a short-term crisis. And I think the tribal nature of Israeli society, uh, you know, the president speaks of the fact that there are four tribes, but we know that's a joke. It's sweet, but there's probably about 59 tribes in Israel, even each neighborhood in Tel Aviv might be a tribe.
Speaker 1 00:12:33 So I think part of what people saw and felt was, you know, the problem is their tribe and Oh, I look what they're doing. And once you tribalized both the infection rate and you can try belies the failures. You exonerate yourself. It's like, even when you say courageous or errands or Tel Aviv, or this imagine a country which is not white and blue, but a country, which is, I dunno, 49 different colors on each one is looking at each other. There's something about our shared collective responsibility to each other, not the responsibility of the government and not our responsibility to stand next to each other in, in, in short term crisis, but a deep sense of being one society there for each other and how, what you do is going to impact on everybody else. I think part of what we're seeing in COVID, and I think we're also seeing it in the electoral system is a breakdown in this collective story.
Speaker 1 00:13:40 And, uh, when I look at this and one of our big questions, the question we have to look at is how do we use this moment to learn about what we need to do for the future? And so in the one-time, there's much to have novice about. And at the same time, I think we have to look at that failure and the failure of how do we create a civil society with term abilities. And more than that, how do we look at the deep divides in this country? And it's not just divides between Jews and Arabs divides within our Jewish community and not just between secular and curating, but between Televiv and Benet Brock and between each neighborhood and Jerusalem, you know, what color is your neighborhood? I think our society is going to have to ask itself, how do we do much better in our ability to build that sense of collective solidarity? And let's take a short break. And when we returned Elana Stein, edible Jonas,
Speaker 3 00:14:37 Hi, my name is <inaudible> and I am a scholar in residence at the Shalom Hartman Institute just before the election, as part of our symposium on Judaism, citizenship and democracy, nine of our faculty members, including myself, came together to record short reflections on ideas that matter to Jewish communities today, to see the serious you can go to our website, Shalim hartman.org/context
Speaker 1 00:15:06 Yolanda. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 4 00:15:08 Great to be with you. I have to say the two of you have the buoyancy of people who have gotten vaccinated. I mean, the lightheartedness at the beginning of this conversation, I'm like these two people have been vaccinated. What a joy to be with you. I hope I can get the vaccination through some audible container
Speaker 1 00:15:33 Because I'd like to stop right there. Our true joy is the joy of total learning and how we take our society and the LED's that you each time bring because there is no greater, greater joy than told us. So a lot of what Tara do you want to share with us today that you think could enrich and shape our thinking or this divided Israel or the Jewish,
Speaker 4 00:15:55 You know, I'm listening to the two of you. And, and I really love that each of you has a different diagnosis, you know, and Jase is asking, is it that people want to move past crisis? So they just try to go back to normalcy. And you're asking Danielle, is it about government versus the way that people actually treat each other? And I want to pick up on your read, Danielle, not necessarily, because I think it's the read about Israel. I think it's the read about COVID. I don't know if it's more this or more that, but I do know that COVID in interest about every society has been testing the question of mutuality among people. And we all know that if you want a healthy society, you can't be in a society where people are just cynically, taking whatever they can get for themselves. They have to be willing to give something up for the other. And I think the trouble is, and I think you identified it, which is everybody's worried about being taken advantage of. I'm going to give a little for you for my interests, and I'm going to give an inch, you're going to take a foot. And I think that that can underlie a lot of the conversation about people engaging with each other, through opportunism, serving their own interests and not the greater good. And if that's what we're going to think about, I want to bring up the rabbinic concept of <inaudible>.
Speaker 4 00:17:10 Now let me share out that. Then people usually translate that as going beyond the letter of the law. I think of leafy musher at a den is like, um, keep the change. Now you do a little extra for somebody else, but literally <inaudible> means staying within the line of the law. Meaning by rights, you could claim all the way up to a certain line, but instead of claiming everything, that's your right. You give up a little, we stay within the line, you move back a little bit. You give to others now within <inaudible> and the ability for people to be able to give up a little bit of what's coming them for the greater good or for how it's going to impact somebody else. Rabbis themselves know that there's a friar possibility. They see it themselves. And I want to look at a story from Bubba. Mitzia 30 B in which this concern that you're to, they give up a little bit of your side and your interest for someone else and the other.
Speaker 4 00:18:10 Person's just going to use that as an opportunity to take advantage of you. I want to see the way the rabbis deal with this. Okay? So here's the story. A little bit of background. No, the context that we're talking about, the, uh, responsibility mandated by the tour of people, helping each other with burdens, literally you see somebody who has a burden that they're carrying on their animal on themselves, and they ask you for help. You get to help them, but not everybody does. If you're older, higher stature, you're actually completely exempt. Okay? So that's the background for the story. Cause we're about to meet a guy who needs help with his burden, asking somebody who's exempt from helping him perfect opportunity to just say, no, I'm going to move on here. It goes. <inaudible>
Speaker 4 00:18:52 was walking on the road. A certain man encountered him that man was carrying a burden that consisted of sticks of wood. He sat down the wood, he was resting. And when he was ready to leave, he asked rubbish mal for some help, he says, can you lift these sticks for me and place them upon me? Now we know as the omniscient reader here, that rubbish, Mel has no responsibility to say, yes, he's actually exempt. He's one of those people. He's older. He's of a certain stature, totally exempt. He could walk away. He could say, I'm sorry. That's not what I have to do. But he actually wants to do something for this other guy. He wants to help. So he says, you know what? I'm going to buy them. I'm going to buy the sticks. Recreational says to him, how much are they worth? In other words, he figures.
Speaker 4 00:19:38 Here's how I'm going to help this guy. He won't have to carry the sticks home. I'm going to buy them from him. He'll be able to use the money when he gets home and buy more sticks. If he wants them. Perfect. Look at this leaf. Naomi Sharada did rubbish smells being so generous. He's giving a little bit. He could have walked away instead. He's offering paying out of his own pocket and he doesn't need the sticks. But the man with the stick says they're worth half a dinner. So rubbish Mollison of Rubio's. He gives him half a Diener. He takes the wood. He says, I don't need this word. So he just puts down the wood. He says, whoever wants the wood can take it. Ownerless habit. Heft. What we call in rabbinic parlance. So nice. But this is where the trouble starts. The man who has this, had the sticks.
Speaker 4 00:20:20 And now he has a half a DNR in his pocket. He should say, thank you. You should walk away. But he doesn't. He sees an opportunity to make a profit. Same man goes and picks up the sticks again. Then turns to revenue, small set of our BOC again, and says, can you help me if this wood and rubbish and all of a sudden for VOC, again, gives him another half a DNR. Now this guy's making a profit. Wherever you smell, it takes the wood. He says, I don't need this wood. Anybody who wants it can come and take the wood. So what do you think happens? The man, he's not content now that he has a full Dean or even he wants to come take the wood again. So he sees rubbish. Mel sees that the man wants to take the word again and rubbish Molson reviews.
Speaker 4 00:21:02 He says, I, I, I said, anybody can take these sticks, but you, you cannot have these sticks. And then the camera says like, w w what's going on here? Why does rubbish smell, even help this guy? And <inaudible> was trying to help. He was trying to do read it in. He could have walked away. He could have said my rights up to the line or to say, I don't have to help you, but he tries to help. And what happens when he tries to help this guy takes advantage of him trying to help. So if you end the story here, what the rabbis would be saying to you is, you know, lithium is shrouded in. It's a nice concept. It's a nice concept, giving up a few, a little bit of your rights, but watch out for those people who will take advantage of you. Don't be the sucker, but that's not the way the story.
Speaker 4 00:21:47 Or I should say the page ends a few lines later. The rabbis make sure the editors really make sure that that's not the takeaway message. Just a few lines later, we have the following rabbi Yochanan said Jerusalem was destroyed because they adjudicated cases on the basis of total law. What do you mean? Think American menus, what else should they have done? Should they have adjudicated the cases on the basis of some other legal system? No says the Camaro. The problem is that they established their rulings on the basis of law and they didn't do leafy Nimi Sharanda did they didn't go beyond the letter of the law. They didn't force people to sometimes say, I renounced some of what's coming to me instead. They said, well, the law gives you this. You take this. The law gives you that you take that with no worry about how that might've impacted the other person or the greater good.
Speaker 4 00:22:48 So instead of ending the story with the, from the majority of the, a nice concept, but watch out for the people who will take advantage of you, the Gamara ends it with something much more profound, which is, you know, what a society that's broken down looks like it's a society, not only where somebody will not give of what's coming to them for someone else and the greater good, but the reason they won't do it is because they know that their act of generosity is going to be met with someone else taking advantage of them. That's the full breakdown of society. Don't get to a point where a rubbish Mel is willing to give, and the other guy uses it as an opportunity to take advantage of him. And I think that's what I really worry about because there's always going to be people who are not willing to give up for someone else. It's just, it's not their personality. It's not the way they were taught. But what I really worry about are the people who would be willing to give up for somebody else, but they know that they're in such a cynical, that if they do that, others will just take advantage of them. That to me is a real breakdown. That's a real problem that requires a re-education and a re incentivization for everybody
Speaker 1 00:23:57 That I really appreciate it. And, uh, you know, as you were talking, that's a lens on which you could see the breakdown between the tribes in Israel society. Each tribe is trying to take as much as it can. And as frightened that, if it does something, if it takes the lead, then somehow it has the other tribe that's going to win. And when you have a tribal society with, with where your primary loyalty is to your tribe, everybody's worried about what the other tribe will take. If they are the ones who say, okay, I agree. And so each one is trying to take as much as they can, because what will happen with the other one?
Speaker 4 00:24:40 You know what? You can't have a unity government, either. It's on every level, right? Meaning it's in the interpersonal, it's in the tribal and it's in the political, you, you, you can't have a coalition if you're not truly going to be willing to give something up.
Speaker 1 00:24:56 And if you're not going to worry all the time that if you give something up, who's benefiting and how are they hurting you? It's a different spirit. And as the rabbi say, if you reach that type of moment, that's a society that's going to be destroyed. Do you sense that spirit in Israeli society see or lack of, because on the short term, you have this Leafly Mishra to Dean on the short term, but sometimes a shortage of it in the long-term.
Speaker 2 00:25:21 Look, I know that you don't want to take this in a rat, everyone else direction. I think that objectively that's where much of Israeli society is. And you mentioned Arab Israelis in passing. I would give them center stage here because they're the other peripheral community. And yet during Corona, they've been outstanding. And there really is a sense among, among many Israeli Jews. That for the first time we were acting together with Arab Israelis in a, in a common purpose, we don't have that common purpose today with the forward deem. And that worries me.
Speaker 4 00:25:57 Trust is in here, right? Meaning what Yesi, what you described as people saying, even during the Holocaust, we still, you know, did our hidden Torah study, right? What, what's the comparison there? That's implicit. The implicit comparison is you are our enemies and you were forcing us to try to shut this down. There's a real lack of trust.
Speaker 1 00:26:19 Go visit my daughter until Aviv actually Yaffa. And you'll see how, how a whole group of people have almost from the beginning. They don't wear masks. They congregate. So the only thing I would suggest is that I have no problem talking about Clery D I have no talk problem talking about Israeli Iris, but I think Elana is saying it's not the domain of one community. I think that idea that society breaks apart when each person is frightened about what the, how the other one will take advantage. I want to tell you it's all over it's it's amongst, you know, the, the, uh, the young, the secular, the telephone, the dog, whatever it might be. Um, and I think the lesson of Elana, if we just focus on one tribe, since I think we're going to short change, the deep challenge that it poses to all of us, because at the end of the day, our societies hold, you're going to grow and grow from Corona.
Speaker 1 00:27:22 If we ask ourselves not how did the other one fail, but how did each one of them, how could each one of us create a society where we for the Matura to deem is a challenge that I feel safe, engaging in. It was wonderful being with both of you as always for heaven sake is a product of the shallow apartment Institute. Today's episode was produced by COVID city, Calvin, and Colleen, and edited by Holly color and assistance from Harry Miller and music is provided by so-called to learn more about the shell apartment is to visit us online at Sholom, harvard.org. You want to know what you think about the show you can write to us at, for heaven sake at Martin, subscribe to our show in the Apple podcast, app, Spotify, and everywhere else, podcasts are available. You'll see a Lana as always. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0 00:28:10 <inaudible>.
