It is wonderfully easy to get Shabbos candles in Beirut--every day the electricity goes out for three hours, and while the blackouts are supposed to happen only between 6am and 6pm, as the summer progresses they are getting more and more erratic. Yesterday, for example, there was a short morning outage, no power from 3-6pm, and another cut between 6-9 pm. So the pile of candles that I got after I came finally started to come in handy for public well as private use.
I don't have Shabbos dinners here, long Friday nights spent with friends and family and fresh challah, but I do light candles and I have a new tradition: after I light my candles and eat some food, I sit and read Pirkei Avot, The Ethics of the Fathers. It may not be a rousing Birkat Hamazon (blessings after the meals), but it is meaningful to me. (I actually lost electricity while writing this and had to do the mini-exodus that half of Beirut participates in every day to a cafe....)
As you may be aware from a previous post, I was not sure I would take a copy of Pirkei Avot with me to Beirut--then I realized that alongside my Syriac versions of the New Testament, commentaries on the Qur'an, and Maimonides in Arabic, it is completely innocuous. And I could not be gladder that I did bring it. There is a phrase that most Jews, or perhaps most north-American Jews, are familiar with--we hear it growing up, time and time again, a constant echoing refrain concerning the importance of Jewish self-reliance. It is a sentiment originally voiced by Hillel, one of the most important authorities of Jewish law, and was later picked up by the philosopher Martin Buber and is Leon Pinsker's opening quotation to his famous text, Auto-Emancipation. I read it this past Friday night--you can find it in Pirkei Avot, verse 14:
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
This statement is the first of a three-part statement by Hillel--the only parts that I knew turn out to have been the first and the third:
1. If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
3. And if not now, when?
The line between these two statements is a moment that cannot be glossed over - it contributes vitally to the texture of both of the other statements.
2. And if I am for myself, then what am I?
וכשאני לץצמי, מה אני?
The English is a literal translation: the question is not 'who' I am, i.e.,a nice person, a kind person, a greedy person, but rather 'what' I am. Because to be a kind person or a greedy person you first have to be a person. And that is the crux of this question. If I am for myself, and only for myself, am I even a human being?
The commentators says that the first phrase, 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" refers to an individuals spiritual development, and is a declaration that each individual cannot foist the responsibility for their internal development off onto another. The second question, they say, is a reminder that however much one accomplishes, one must not forget, or neglect, that one is only capable of accomplishing things because one is in a group, a member in a community of humans beings -- and it is that membership in the community that makes us capable of being human beings.
I'm not in a group of Jews right now. In fact, with the exception of Saudi Arabia and possibly Afghanistan, I might be as far away from any physical group of Jews as possible (southern neighbors not withstanding.) But that does not mean that I am not a part of multiple and overlapping groups--there are my Lebanese friends, some newly met and some old friends from college, who have gone out of their way to help me not only get around, but enjoy myself. And there are my Syrian friends, who remind me every day how much worse things could be, through whom I attempt, in wholly inadequate ways, to fulfill the mitzvot of tzadakah, friends who are working tirelessly to help the thousands of hungry and lost refugees who have flooded into Beirut from Syria. These friends, these Syrian friends, were students when I met them. They are now activists, journalists, and in some cases, fighters.
We are all growing up much faster, and in different ways, than I think we ever imagined.
I cannot be for myself at the moment. There are other things besides the Revolution which would be more useful to my career development at the moment. There is a lot of work that I should be getting done. Speaking to a family member the other day, he cautioned me about being too public about my opinion concerning the Revolution. "If the regime manages to hang on," he said, "you don't want to destroy your chances of going back to Syria for a long time."
And while I am usually a circumspect person, and while I usually try to restrain myself (and did to a great extent all through the first year of the Revolution), I will repeat again what I said to him: "Think of it like 1939. It's time to take a side."
I am not a Syrian. I will never be a Syrian. But as a Jew, I know what it meant that there were gentiles, non-Jews, who stood up for what they believed was write, who protected Jews--Jews who were the parents and grandparents of my friends--from brutal extermination.
They were not for themselves. The non-Jewish intellectuals, writers, and journalists, who fled Nazi Germany knew that by doing so, they were putting their 'German future' in deadly peril. German expatriates in the United States and Britain who spoke out against Hitler and the Third Reich as a brutal fascist dictatorship knew, and I would imagine heard from their friends, that "if Hitler manages to hang on, you will destroy your chances of going back to Germany for a long time."
But they did it anyway. And least I be accused of deploying the Hitler card, I would make the case that it is more apt here than in many places: a dictator who incites his people to sectarian violence, who massacres those who are not of his religion, whose forces specifically target those of other faiths or ethnicities and beat them bloody while forcing them to renounce their faith...no, Bashar Assad is not Hitler. No one is Hitler.
But that does not mean that it is acceptable to remain self-interested. It does not mean that our responsibility is less. It does not make the dead and the living less needy, or us less obligated to respond to their need, because there are tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands.
Sunni villages have been leveled. There are towns in Syria that no longer exist, that have been wiped clean off the map. There is nothing there of the memory of those who lived there, died there, who gave birth to and raised children there, and who prayed and attempted to live their lives according to the ethics of their fathers on that land.
I don't have Shabbos dinners here, long Friday nights spent with friends and family and fresh challah, but I do light candles and I have a new tradition: after I light my candles and eat some food, I sit and read Pirkei Avot, The Ethics of the Fathers. It may not be a rousing Birkat Hamazon (blessings after the meals), but it is meaningful to me. (I actually lost electricity while writing this and had to do the mini-exodus that half of Beirut participates in every day to a cafe....)
As you may be aware from a previous post, I was not sure I would take a copy of Pirkei Avot with me to Beirut--then I realized that alongside my Syriac versions of the New Testament, commentaries on the Qur'an, and Maimonides in Arabic, it is completely innocuous. And I could not be gladder that I did bring it. There is a phrase that most Jews, or perhaps most north-American Jews, are familiar with--we hear it growing up, time and time again, a constant echoing refrain concerning the importance of Jewish self-reliance. It is a sentiment originally voiced by Hillel, one of the most important authorities of Jewish law, and was later picked up by the philosopher Martin Buber and is Leon Pinsker's opening quotation to his famous text, Auto-Emancipation. I read it this past Friday night--you can find it in Pirkei Avot, verse 14:If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
אמ אינ לי, מי לי
This statement is the first of a three-part statement by Hillel--the only parts that I knew turn out to have been the first and the third:
1. If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
3. And if not now, when?
The line between these two statements is a moment that cannot be glossed over - it contributes vitally to the texture of both of the other statements.
2. And if I am for myself, then what am I?
וכשאני לץצמי, מה אני?
The English is a literal translation: the question is not 'who' I am, i.e.,a nice person, a kind person, a greedy person, but rather 'what' I am. Because to be a kind person or a greedy person you first have to be a person. And that is the crux of this question. If I am for myself, and only for myself, am I even a human being?
The commentators says that the first phrase, 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" refers to an individuals spiritual development, and is a declaration that each individual cannot foist the responsibility for their internal development off onto another. The second question, they say, is a reminder that however much one accomplishes, one must not forget, or neglect, that one is only capable of accomplishing things because one is in a group, a member in a community of humans beings -- and it is that membership in the community that makes us capable of being human beings.
 |
| Thousands of Syrian refugees have flooded into Lebanon in the last weeks. |
We are all growing up much faster, and in different ways, than I think we ever imagined.
I cannot be for myself at the moment. There are other things besides the Revolution which would be more useful to my career development at the moment. There is a lot of work that I should be getting done. Speaking to a family member the other day, he cautioned me about being too public about my opinion concerning the Revolution. "If the regime manages to hang on," he said, "you don't want to destroy your chances of going back to Syria for a long time."
 |
| Lime Balla--Saved Jews in North Africa during WWII |
And while I am usually a circumspect person, and while I usually try to restrain myself (and did to a great extent all through the first year of the Revolution), I will repeat again what I said to him: "Think of it like 1939. It's time to take a side."
I am not a Syrian. I will never be a Syrian. But as a Jew, I know what it meant that there were gentiles, non-Jews, who stood up for what they believed was write, who protected Jews--Jews who were the parents and grandparents of my friends--from brutal extermination.
 |
| Bertolt Brecht, who spoke out against Hitler from New York |
They were not for themselves. The non-Jewish intellectuals, writers, and journalists, who fled Nazi Germany knew that by doing so, they were putting their 'German future' in deadly peril. German expatriates in the United States and Britain who spoke out against Hitler and the Third Reich as a brutal fascist dictatorship knew, and I would imagine heard from their friends, that "if Hitler manages to hang on, you will destroy your chances of going back to Germany for a long time."
But they did it anyway. And least I be accused of deploying the Hitler card, I would make the case that it is more apt here than in many places: a dictator who incites his people to sectarian violence, who massacres those who are not of his religion, whose forces specifically target those of other faiths or ethnicities and beat them bloody while forcing them to renounce their faith...no, Bashar Assad is not Hitler. No one is Hitler.
But that does not mean that it is acceptable to remain self-interested. It does not mean that our responsibility is less. It does not make the dead and the living less needy, or us less obligated to respond to their need, because there are tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands.
Sunni villages have been leveled. There are towns in Syria that no longer exist, that have been wiped clean off the map. There is nothing there of the memory of those who lived there, died there, who gave birth to and raised children there, and who prayed and attempted to live their lives according to the ethics of their fathers on that land.
Members of Syrian Intelligence forcing a Muslim man to blaspheme and say. "There is no G-d but Bashar Assad."
I've picked my side. Because while the Ethics of the Fathers
makes clear the dangers of relying on Kings and governors, or even the rich, it
is equally clear about our obligation to those who are being threatened,
murdered, destroyed. And it is just as clear concerning our obligations to our
friends.
Maybe I will not be able to go back to Syria for a long time. But, if the regime stays, I don't think I'll want to. For any reason, or for any job. Although I might consider a horse-ride over a border if invited.
I am not claiming that simply picking a side even approaches being what one might call, under these conditions, I've picked my side. Because while the Ethics of the Fathers makes clear the dangers of relying on Kings and governors, or even the rich, it is equally clear about our obligation to those who are being threatened, murdered, destroyed. And it is just as clear concerning our obligations to our friends.
Maybe I will not be able to go back to Syria for a long time. But, if the regime stays, I don't think I'll want to. For any reason, or for any job. Although I might consider a horse-ride over a border if invited.
I am also not claiming that simply picking a side even approaches being what one might call, under these conditions, a righteous ajnabi (foreigner). Not by any stretch of the imagination. But it is a time of war, when making no decision becomes worse than making the wrong decision. I know people who are making different decisions than I have. That is their right. I hope they will change their position, and some of them, I know, hope I will change mine.
But I know, at least for now, which flag I will walk under. And it will not be the flag of a hereditary despot who authorizes the massacre of women and children, the destruction of towns, who encourages and incites sectarian violence and pogroms.
To stand against that, and accept the consequences? Those are the ethics of my fathers.
Because if I am for myself right now, what am I, really?
And if I do not make the decision now, when?
Maybe I will not be able to go back to Syria for a long time. But, if the regime stays, I don't think I'll want to. For any reason, or for any job. Although I might consider a horse-ride over a border if invited.
I am not claiming that simply picking a side even approaches being what one might call, under these conditions, I've picked my side. Because while the Ethics of the Fathers makes clear the dangers of relying on Kings and governors, or even the rich, it is equally clear about our obligation to those who are being threatened, murdered, destroyed. And it is just as clear concerning our obligations to our friends.
Maybe I will not be able to go back to Syria for a long time. But, if the regime stays, I don't think I'll want to. For any reason, or for any job. Although I might consider a horse-ride over a border if invited.
I am also not claiming that simply picking a side even approaches being what one might call, under these conditions, a righteous ajnabi (foreigner). Not by any stretch of the imagination. But it is a time of war, when making no decision becomes worse than making the wrong decision. I know people who are making different decisions than I have. That is their right. I hope they will change their position, and some of them, I know, hope I will change mine.
But I know, at least for now, which flag I will walk under. And it will not be the flag of a hereditary despot who authorizes the massacre of women and children, the destruction of towns, who encourages and incites sectarian violence and pogroms.
To stand against that, and accept the consequences? Those are the ethics of my fathers.
Because if I am for myself right now, what am I, really?
And if I do not make the decision now, when?
