Notes ... as I begin reading book by R. Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, titled: The Dignity of Difference. Quotes from the book.. sometimes from others...
Prologue:
p. 4 - Jonathan Swift: 'we have "just enough religion to make us hate one another but not enough to make us love one another'".
p. p. 8: 'Sir Henry Maine observed "War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention."' YES I (Ken) note that the Torah/Talmud value peace! Maybe the world is catching up?
p. 13 - Sacks says: we need "Reverence, restraint, humility, a sense of limits, the ability to listen and respond to human distress".
AND BASICALLY -- Sacks is calling for OUGHTS.... which I think is the same as "shoulds" which I have been echewing recently on the advice of therapists... THE point is .... the collective vs the individual... The Collective is very essential and is based on a set of oughts/shoulds... Right?
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PEACE NOW???
Peace for all and I would suggest for Jews especially is of prime importance. To be compaasionate requires peaceful thinking and feeling towards the "other".... be the "other" an individual or a group or a nation, etc. etc... We should be in a time of peace... but really we are not. There is no apparent world-wide war such as WW1 or 2... but there are all the wars as in the book "1984" and those wars truly serve to drain energy and resources from a the general Peace and Prosperity the world could have.
Armed camps are everywhere.... For us in the USA -- just look at our schools and churches/synagogues/mosques, etc.. and hospitals and regular places of business. And consider the billions spent in Afghanistan. And then there is the Deportation Days of ICE, etc. We were, once upon a time, the Policeman of the World... and now we are becoming a Police State. Troops in cities where there are no riots except those countering the troop deployments. A President has declared and engaged in economic warfare against friends and supposed foes. WHAT A WASTE...
And as a Jew I look and see other Jews supporting a fascist who may not be the 21st century Hitler but who is still less a guardian of our country and more a narscisistic grandstanding cheating criminal in so many ways. He certainly has been convicted of serious crimes... YET he now alsmost fully controls the most powerful parts of our criminal justice system... the FBI and the Courts. He represents and asserts deeply Conservative Republican values and interests that align with the rich.
On the other side of the political spectrum are Social Democrats which has always been, in my opinion, the essence of the Democratic Party yet the word Social is, I think, rather synonomous with Liberal... and to many being Liberal is a negative. However - Social rather than Liberal may be a clearer way of asserting what are the values and ways and means of these new Democrats. And Democrats must be maintained as a party since that is what our two-party political system has been in good/great days and those are days I hope will return. As a Jew -- this Social/Liberal side of our politics is problematic when/if the support of Israel is effected and today in NYC a newly elected mayor may be a forced around which anti-Israel sentiment and actions may coalesc. I can hope the new mayor, Mamdani, will work locally for his constituents and not waste energy and potential resources on international concerns beyond the needs of New York City.
The point here to remember -- Jews are in the MIDDLE... Jews support fascists and they support liberals. We can see values to us in both camps. THE TIME HAS COME for us Jews to be a light unto the nations... Lets show the world what can and should be ... YES - SHOULD!!! We need some changes and we need partners. Change is now more likely since now, after two years of war in Gaza, there is, I hope, more of a basis for security. THE PARTNER will have to be those with whom we have fought. IF only Palestinians and the many Muslim countries would cherish and make PEACE...!!!
Jews and Israel have values and ways specific to ourselves... based on our history which includes The Land of Israel .. but limited to the region. We expanded under King Solomon ... but not to the entire world. And later in history we were a dispersed people without national powers. We had national aspirations - i.e. Israel. But not the world. Not converting others to our way of being, our religion. AND this is A WAY FORWARD FOR PEACE IN THE WORLD... Let all aspire to their own selves and places and respect other selves and spaces... AND resolution of what goes on in the Middle East is a great challenge and as with all challenges - An Opportunity to get it RIGHT.
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