The Jewish Story: Independence 5779 Interlude: Independence or Self-Actualization?

follow the path of the unsafe independent thinker says Thomas Watson expose your ideas to the danger of controversy speak your mind and fear less the label crackpot than the stigma of conformity well I've never been much of a conformist and there are definitely people out there who think I'm a crackpot but I pride myself on being a bit of an independent thinker because I'm Rob my choir and this is the Jewish story Yom hot Sloot 57 79 independence or self-actualization you know it's always a challenge to come up with something new to say and I feel a bit of pressure in particular around this very special day of Yom hot smooth Israeli Independence Day so I thought to myself we just go back to something we've touched on before but I don't think we've ever really dug into and that is that there's no word in Biblical Hebrew or rabbinic even for that matter for independence Ozma root is a word that was created a personal what's it mean Ozma who'd if you look in the Hebrew dictionary it says he massaged abomey deny not clear but go in its own ear at the situation in which a state or country is not dependent upon any external force for the sake of its existence be it physical or economic a gana a brutal terror for the defense of its borders etc etc it's a word that was actually coined interestingly enough by itamar Ben AVI it's my banoffee avi sa acronym for Eliezer ben-yehuda he's the son of the man who invested his entire life in the revival of the Hebrew language in many ways he was the first born native speaker of modern Hebrew and in searching around for a word like Dudek actually what essentially is a modern concept he had to coin his own now why do I say it's a modern concept because it's not by accident that there's no such word in the Bible this idea of not being dependent upon any external force is completely foreign to the way in which the Bible see its existence certainly the national existence of ami style just go back to the book of shifting of judges and you'll encounter what's known as the cycle of the judges this idea that Thomas Trails spiritual security is what actually provides our physical security that we being independent in the modern sense doesn't mean being strong and free and unencumbered by alliances or dependencies on other nations it means being true to our inner spiritual selves and through that receiving the divine grace that allows us to be successful on the battlefield or on the economic front and so ether mom been avi was forced to coin a word to encapsulate a modern conception of independence because the classic Hebrew language didn't provide it however you know there's no such thing as creating a word out of nothing or sure there is but not in any successful sense and so the word Optima does of course have a biblical root the first usage of ayan na dhih mem as a three-letter root which is the way the Hebrew language works goes all the way back to that story of creation and not just the story of creation but the story of the creation of Adam and hava of the first man and woman Sevilla Pella Cheryl him Todd a mahom ladies shun right God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the first man and he indeed slept become it's love how they took one of his ribs you know the story he closed up after him and said God build that rib which he took from humanity into woman be there give er L adami brought her to the man and I wanted him save IMR Adam Zota pom this time Atem Matt saw my Wissam me be sorry this is bone of my bone flesh of my flesh because the word not smooth has its origin in the word at some bone it's the essential inner being which holds up the whole super structure that's built upon it and this first appearance with Adam's first encounter to hava raises one of the fundamental problems that we all face as individuals and certainly that we face as a nation which is how do I know who I am he says at some Mott's my how does he recognize within hava that which he already is now as long as we're subject to the will of another the question of exploring how we know we are is really bound up with rebellion one way or another me who rebelled against our parents everybody who's either been a teenager or who like myself as a raising one in the house knows that there is a deep need to push against the parent and the infrastructure that they provide in order to determine who we are and another form of asking that question of Who I am is pushing against cultural expectations right on many levels what it means to be a Jew to be part of amis Rael is to be counterculture after all our father Abraham the original Ivry stood on one side of the world and the whole world was convinced that ideology was one way and he said no it's gotta be another and he was the first Jewish rebel so pushing against cultural expectations of course the classic form of Independence which is a pushing against foreign nations within your land or getting out of exile so that's all great swell and good what happens when I actually gained my independence when I move out of my parents house or I establish my comfort with my counterculture or I kick foreign nations out of my land and return home because suddenly most of us fine is far easier to define ourselves by what I'm not to find the clarity of self through what I reject then it is to actually decide what I am and what I long to be because that proves to be a much trickier proposition and that's the danger that comes with the gift of Independence whether that independence is living on my own for the first time or building my own country for the first time in 2,000 years and I'm here to tell you that in my experience both personal and research there are generally two poles that people and nations will seek consciously or not one is to find a new master individuals will seek dominating relationships people that'll tell them what to do nations will often become client states looking to sort of follow in the wake of some larger entity's vision and then of course there's always the tendency toward cultural conformity I've got it it meant I have a little bit of bone to pick in Israel right now there's a frenzy around what's called a Eurovision the fact that we as Jews have succeeded the game of world culture and that we're hosting what apparently is the largest cultural event in the minds of the Europeans at least that could ever be and that scene is a great victory and expression of our independence the celebration is actually the week after Independence Day I've got a little bit of a problem with cultural conformity as an expression of Independence so that's one sign there's this desire to find a new authority right the other pole by the way is to try and cast off everything which we once were everything that was shaped by the path of oppression needs to go out the door in hopes of making a true revolution of self and if you've been following the Jewish story for a little while you're familiar with this as the desire and the Zionists to be a new Jew to get rid of what was the things that bind us to the old you in order to become all that we can be in the land now well fairness the pioneering Zionists weren't exactly the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia if you don't know that history just a little bit the Khmer Rouge took their cue actually from the French Revolution because after the abolition of the monarchy in the revolution in 1792 I think it was the National Convention instituted a new calendar and they declared the beginning of year one it's actually not entirely unreasonable plenty of people have done it but the Khmer Rouge took one critical step further because they sensed that in order to really start again it isn't enough to move forward from the point of revolution to say ah we've overthrown in the past now we're going from here on they had a sense that you have to destroy the past and so they didn't go for year one they went for years zero yeah this is the idea that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed and a new revolutionary culture built from scratch now that might sound appealing in theory it might not but you understand that the effort to purge and replace history from the ground up for the Khmer Rouge meant that they rounded up teachers artists intellectuals basically anybody who knew anything and they slaughtered them in wonder known as The Killing Fields now like I said the Zionists in their desire to create the new Jew were not that extreme but they did have a deep-seated desire to free themselves by erasing their past that's the origin of that wonderful term mean hatena la palma from the hebrew bible to the striking arm of the Hagana underground and nothing in between the desire to make a link to this glorious biblical past and to erase 2,000 years of what the Zionists or at least many of them perceived to be the suffering of exile we spoke once in season two about Haim Hadassah's short story the Sermon façades was one of Israel's most honored fiction writers and frankly one of the most influential thinkers in the early decades of the state he wrote a short story is called the sermon main character is Utica now Utica in Yiddish means little Jew and he's meant to represent just that I'm playing is rail this simple Jew and UTA's defining characteristic is his reluctance to ever speak in public which is a challenge in a kibbutz society in which you live because everything is decided by committee and one day when the committee of the kibbutz gathers to discuss the school curriculum to everyone's surprise you can ask to deliver a statement and cos øz pictures him stuttering in and and struggling finally manages to get out the following statement I want to state that I am opposed to Jewish history he says because we didn't make our own history the made it for us what is there in it oppression defamation persecution martyrdom and gain oppression defamation persecution and martyrdom and again and again and again without end just a collection of wounded hunted groaning and wailing wretches always begging for mercy I would simply forbid teaching our children Jewish history why the devil teach them about their ancestors shame I would say to them boys from the day we were exiled from our land we've been a people without a history is dismissed go out and play football you hear it that's the desire for independence as an extreme autonomy even from my past I am dependent upon nothing and it represents the opposite pole from what many people do when they're granted their freedom which is rushed to find a new master a new Authority because there's a continuum between authority and autonomy and we always have a choice where we're going to land on it but it's important to remember that either end of the pole autonomy and authority in their pure forms are both a myth right no one is able to completely divest themselves of their responsibility for their life and give over authority to someone else even a client state which follows in the wake of a world power will have to make its own decisions at one time or another and no one can be completely autonomous because if you're autonomous it means that you have to create your own language your own calendar your own history and furthermore that you can't learn from anyone else or have any real relationships so on one hand slavery meaning the acceptance of authority is nothing that we want and it's gonna take a lot of work to liberate ourselves and to embrace the burden of freedom the ability to actually make autonomous choices on the other hand independence is not really having no dependency on any external power like the Hebrew definition made it sound which by the way it is to be clear it did make it clear that no such a thing actually exists because after all go free yourself from the biosphere none of us are really autonomous and I would offer that that realization which Adam had in the Mona of meeting kava at some mints my that place in which Eliezer ben-yehuda son actually found the origins of a Hebrew word for independence wasn't just a recognition of who she was it was a real him self remember the phrase is hop Zota palm at Ansem iovis are mid beasts on my right this time I see that this is bone of my bone flesh of my flesh he's not just understanding her he's reconceptualizing himself and hence the phrase which follows it alkane Azov ich Oliva team Oh but the lock Beach Nova you lava saw a cod and that's why it's interesting he recognizes himself in her and that's why a man can abandon his father and mother can abandon the context which created him and the vac visto and cleaved to his chosen relationship to his wife Mayu Lavasa ha and they become one flesh one new thing because between those two poles of autonomy and authority which we're always bouncing between be it an invitation or the real need to seek shelter under the wings of a more powerful entity that lie on the authority side or the autonomous side and desire to be who I want to be and the consequences be damned we're always oscillating between them and what emerges from them is actually authenticity a real way of being and authenticity always emerges from relationship right relationship is the most powerful tool for coming to be who we longed to be and of course coming to be who we longed to be is perhaps the greatest expression of Independence so I'd like to offer that another possible translation of Ozma and perhaps really a more accurate one is self-actualization right because that's that etson that bone that essential part that Eliezer ben-yehuda son identified and uses the root for the modern word for independence and 'it's mute selfhood as opposed to a suit which is kind of independence is a favorite term of our master and teacher rough around the otaku Cohen cook who never actually saw the independent state but was certainly the prophet of its rise and his voice still echoes down through time you have to read his works to appreciate how clear his vision could be and in many many places he contemplates the nature of freedom and in particular of the challenge of differentiating between these sort of external type of freedom freedom from and the true inner freedom freedom of as he says the difference wean a slave and a free man is not just a matter of status cuz we can find what he calls an enlightened slave whose spirit is filled with freedom and also the opposite a free person who has the spirit of a slave so what inner of kooks mine is true freedom self-actualization he says hi Ruth Kotzebue needs right definitive freedom heel-toe Aroha Nisa NASA is that elevated spirit that lifts up an individual or people to be faithful to their inner self hood hots mute happening meets shadow to that soul quality of the divine image which is within it right to be free is to find one's self and actualize it which itself is as what he calls the Salim Elohim ma chere but you walk that element of the Divine image which is in within us as individuals and within us as a nation when I hear the word self-actualization I can't but help think of Maslow's hierarchy remember it back in high school I don't know maybe you've done advanced learning in psychology and you've encountered it on a deeper sense it's that pyramid at the base of which are the physical needs followed eyes safety and security and then the emotional needs of friendship and love followed by esteem and finally there at the top self-actualization you know originally in Maslow's mind this was a sort of rigid hierarchy in order for any motivation to achieve the higher level to occur you had to get whatever level was done that it was below it taking care of and now today's scholars actually prefer to think of them as continuously overlapping even when you're hungry you might be motivated towards self-actualization but I'm not really interested in theorizing about the pyramid I want to know how we get to self-actualization I want to get to the top and I want to know how we do it not just as individuals but as a piece because in my eyes that is the great opportunity that I'm living that we're living right now we've been offered an incredible chance by the Revolution of 1948 we have the chance to fulfill God's original promise Tom when he said lexico leave everything you know notice the pattern right your land your home your father's house everything you know right and go to this land which I will show you the answer huh the guy got all the other ahahah begala shemekka right I'm going to make you there into a great nation I'll bless you I'll make your name great and you shall be a blessing because there have been great individual Jews throughout time and all over the planet just as there have been great individual non-jews throughout time and all over the planet my question on this Yom hot spot with this day of self actualization is what does it look like to be a great nation and seeing as self actualization at smooth sits at the top of Maslow's pyramid I think you can help us let's start with the physical needs and first and foremost and we're gonna talk about physical needs on a national level I want to give thanks for the good life that we have today it is not a simple thing to see the level of abundance in which is real lives be it here in the Land of Israel or in the United States but really throughout the world compared to most of our history food clothing and shelter don't even touch what we've been given and let's not forget that the Gemara and Sanhedrin says that when the hills of Judea give forth their fruit to feed on Israel that in Kate's Mugu lamb is that there's no greater revealed sign of the redemption I'll tell you a funny story I remember that ruff Shum Gold told me once right he used to tell it as much as he could get a neighbor lizard har know if it's a fairly religious neighborhood of Jerusalem which means because it's really geology there's a little bit of skepticism around the zionist notion that we're in a stage of redemption and right after the disengagement right after the jewish communities of gaza were destroyed and their people evicted one of his neighbors came up to him in the Macola in the little supermarket he's standing in the vegetable row and says Hana cold what do you think about your zionists and redemption now and he said he turns on me said you should be ashamed before the tomatoes you should be ashamed in front of the cucumbers for even asking a question like that you got a gnome to appreciate meaning what meaning the abundance within which we live in a particular the land giving forth its fruit is the most revealed sign of redemption and don't give up just because sometimes it seems like we're going backwards and if you've been following season three then you know that the ink gathering of the exiles was a massive burden on this young country and our economic survival was far from obvious we don't have to go back hundreds of thousands of years to say wow wouldn't they be amazed to see what this country looks like right now I know grandparents who are amazed to see what this country looks like right now I do have to add one caveat from my holy wife you know we were speaking last night at the third meal at the end of Shabbat and she said that a truly Jewish country we were talking about what a Jewish country look like is one whose society is defined by justice and in particular social justice because I'm sad to say the price of our physical freedom and our physical abundance should not be the poverty of the poor and maybe it would be a good thing for all of us to take that to heart this independence day this day of self-actualization and to spend as much on tzedakah as we do on the meat that we're gonna put on the barbecue so that's the base level of Maslow but really I want to speak about safety and security and their emotional needs which lie above them and I want to speak about them together because in my humble opinion the safety security need and the emotional need are deeply related to the present phase of our national existence and it might just be the confusion between them that's preventing us from moving up the pyramid now if you stay tuned for the rest of season 3 and what may even be season 4 you'll hear me make the argument that the existential security the sense that every war is a do or die and that the axe is just hanging right over our heads began to crumble here in our country really with the Egyptian peace treaty of nineteen seventy-eight when suddenly it wasn't true any longer that every one of the states around us wanted to destroy us and that itself had direct consequences in the social response within Israel to the Lebanon War of the early 80s it was since then that our security thinking has been clouded by two primary emotional needs and the inability to separate the reality on the ground from the reality within threatens our independence even today I mean after all what other people would tolerate 450 missiles begun completely unprovoked in one day that's what's going on as I'm recording to this even now and one of the reasons that the press is offering for our sort of muted response to such a heinous crime is that we don't want to ruin our Independence Day celebrations wait Bay so one of the emotional issues that's clouding our thinking is clearly fear and part of that is just trauma be it personal in immediate I mean it's hard to know how many actual individuals are walking around in our country with post-traumatic stress disorder I'm not just talking about those that have been inherited over time which is very real I'm talk about those that have actually been in war right so I'll just put for you Prime Minister Menachem bagans justification to the Israeli cabinet and the eve of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June of 1982 and you'll get the point really quickly he said the alternative is Treblinka and we've decided there will be no more Treblinka really really the only alternative to invading Lebanon is a death camp I think that there might just be some space in between there for thought that's just one level of fear but the fear I'm really concerned about the one that actually thwarts our security and thus our self-actualization is more than the fear of what our enemies might do to us if we don't get them first because honestly we are the strongest military power in the region they should fear us not vice-versa but right now they don't and why not because the fear of what the world will think is also crippling our security and that's a problem that we will explore at length in a coming episode but for the purposes of the present discussion I'll pose it like this do we want to be a client state or Kingdom do we really aspire to independence with all the power and real responsibility that it offers or will we rather hide behind the skirts of another nation the United Nations or just so-called international morality you know there's an inner tension between being weak and being strong which characterized the nature of European Jewish politics for the last 1,500 years we call it the sod non-model Ashdod LAN was the unofficial but culturally empowered representative of the Jewish community before whatever king or Prince they found themselves facing as the local power but the sad La Nina and in the the way it's always presented it he was a very stupid and sort of clever and and would approach in a very humble manner begging for whatever it was the Jewish people needed in that moment but the Stalin wasn't a beggar because if he was just there begging what hope could he have had he knew they had something to offer and that was Jewish power the problem was that unlike the leader of an independent people the Scotland dare not appear too powerful or suddenly he ceases to be a potential tool or even client of whatever king or Prince he's negotiating with and suddenly becomes an independent threat and we face this same situation here in the State of Israel I'll give you an example from the history of the independent state in 1965 as a veidt's Minh who was then IDF chief of operations was on his way to America to present Israel's requests for airplanes to supply the IDF's air force the IAF and before such a critical trip 1965 this is the lead-up to the six-day war he went to prime minister lay vehicle to get advice on how exactly to present the state should we portray Israel as a weak nation one that desperately needs help and therefore is to be pitied or should he portray them as a budding regional power which according to Cold War logic the United States should invest in now ash Cole parently didn't hesitate for a moment he thought weitzman you should present us as chim chim Deneb addition right he was a classic each acid meaning Samson the weakling Samson is the archetypical powerful figure of biblical history and the never dinner is the ultimate Yiddish exile expression of someone who has absolutely no ability to defend themself and this tension characterizes us up to this day my dear friend he shy pleasure likes to call it the Woody Norris syndrome on one hand we're Chuck Norris how BAM we smash our enemies and then cracks maybe we shouldn't have done it I'm a little afraid of the consequences but Weitzman heard it first from Asheville shim-sham didn't ever do her and you can find it today if you on one hand you walk the streets you'll meet people who are confident that the Jewish state can overcome any and all obstacles in our path on the other hand if you speak to people long enough you'll also find that we're haunted by the fear that anihilation is just around the corner and that our hands are tied by the world this is this tendency to bask in the triumph of the success while worrying that our situation is precarious and that we're victims of some world conspiracy hasn't gone away since ash Cole's time and I think it's that this is more than just an honest fear for what's a truly difficult situation and it's more than the internalization of centuries of sort of like a a hunched posture not wanting to appear too strong and it's more than even than than just the trauma of the very real pain that we've had I think it's a fear of full self-actualization it's a fear of what victory might actually look like if we decided that we were going to truly be independent and that's what's holding us short on Maslow's hierarchy got the physical needs although we need to do the work and please let's all give a little bit of tadaka to those who need this Independence Day and our security on one hand is completely in our own hands we are the regional power on the other hand our emotional trauma and our unwillingness to own the responsibility and the glorious opportunity of being independent is holding us back not just from self actualization but actually from real esteem which underlies it so I wanna wrap up this ramble but going back to my question what does it look like to be a great nation what is national self-actualization what is true wants MA first of all let's touch that opening point once again because it's certainly not imitating other nations no matter how advanced or globally popular and it's a repeated theme of the book of Vayikra of Leviticus the book that we're in the midst of in the public reading right now which teaches us how to be the Mamluk anima GUI Kadosh the nation of priests and the holy people which God desires as it says I eat them Likud regime ki kadosh any a Shem or you shall be holy to me for I am the Lord am holy Mahavira Amina ha Meem really and I've set you apart from other peoples to be mine we cannot be independent by wanting to be like anyone else and it is not the ultimate expression of our independence to win Eurovision now on the other hand it's a myth to say that we're a nation that dwells alone at least in the simple sense because a person our nation that wants to be truly autonomous can't learn can't teach can't have relationships at all because all quality learning and teaching and relationships are dependent upon my empowering you to be an authority in my life and since I believe that the actual purpose of our existence and certainly the only real justification for the pain and suffering which is bound up with our quest for independence is lastly MA it's complete Redemption and that means our independence can't find its expression by standing completely from the world now that that being said we do need to figure out to some degree who we are before we can enter into right relationship that allows us to be all that we can be and so what does it mean to be a great nation a people struggling to actualize itself in the land I hear you ask that okay Mike you've caused you've caused all these problems and raised all these questions where are your answer so I'll tip my hand and I'll tell you what I'm waiting for longing for it let it be soon let it be now even a little bit trying to work towards and that is prophecy because as Ralph Cooke says this is the national characteristic of MU Israel when all of the people of Israel have a sense of God consciousness then the prophets will be able to have that sense of divine communication now I'm not necessarily talking about the dramatic Word of God type that we've inherited from our holy ancestors but I am thinking about the profound but simple sense of that national consciousness of rejoicing before God it gives us the capacity to give voice to a higher order of creation and that's by the way why it's so important in my eyes that we all sing hallow on this Yamahas mode we all sing the Psalms of praises praises to God who not only creates the context of creation that allows us to be independent but blessed us to live in a time in history where it's found its fruit here in the land so you know aside from us mote from the question of what this independence or self-actualization means on this Independence Day I want you to think about just one more word and we'll close with this and it might actually give us a little guidance on how to bring all these lofty concepts I'm talking about down into our daily lives and therefore move just a bit closer toward being a great nation that can merit the spirit of prophecy and bring redemption to the world and that word is actually there in the opening line a megillah' the Israeli Declaration of Independence and it reads as follows the land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people here their spiritual religious and political identity was shaped here they first the statehood created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave the world the eternal book of books if you may hear how this line actually encapsulates much of the ideas that we've raised here it's not just the plaint point of origin this is what our spiritual religious and political identity was shaped and therefore where we were able to give to the world things of national and universal significance however part of true independence of course is having a native tongue and if you read this line in Hebrew it sounds a little bit different in particular in one phrase BLTs L comma mu D baaaad Muto honey oddity drama Dini vah hai hai a common me hood mom la teat the first part is just the same land of Israel in the Land of Israel arose the Jewish people and there was shaped its spiritual religious and political and character identity vah hai hai economy would mom Lochte in there we lived a life of of a kingly or kingdom of uprightness it's a very commute mom knocked it up bright king miss it's almost impossible to translate which is why it says there they first attained to statehood but it's this word calling me with that I want to leave us with coz what exactly does it mean to be commute by ovens well the crafters of the Declaration of Independence took this word and it's the only time that whole word that this word appears in the whole Hebrew Bible is in the book of ie Kragh Leviticus 26 13 it says the Nina Shimon okay come I Lord am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be their slaves no more right once again independent certainly means being free from who broke the bars of your yoke and I believe that that repetition is you don't have to just be free from the external oppression you also need the break the internal oppression in order to be totally free and then what role is ahem call me mute and it doesn't say I brought you to the land it says I made you walk upright because once we learn to walk upright be it in our personal lives and our communal eyes in our national eyes right we've been freed from the external definitions from the need for cultural conformity from the fear of actually wielding power in service of right and from a sense that others can define our being then walking upright we can make it into the land where we can truly be that's my aim independent self actualize a great nation in the land and that's my blessing for us all on this Yamahas mood let it be soon let it be now wanna thank a few people as long as I'm here wanna thank you for listening and I want to thank together with you all those people give their hard-earned money to make the show happen to keep it free widely distributed and I want to invite you to join them right now stop what you're doing go to Jewish story dot CEO and there in the upper right hand corner you'll see a button that says be a patron and you can click there and push on through a little bit of per podcast support that's too much you can send me an email at Rob Mike Feuer gmail.com or you can find me on Facebook at Jewish story podcast and I'll give you the details there I want to thank the Land of Israel Network right that's the Land of Israel calm for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people I want to thank the partes Jeep Dar es org dot al the building and educational institute allows me to touch the hearts and minds of so many wonderful Jews and it once again I want to thank you for listening I'm Mike