During a recent telephone conversation, my mother told me excitedly about the newest decorative touch to her home, four-foot-tall branches designed to stand dramatically in a planter.
When she bought them, the salesperson assured her that the branches that looked dry and dead would come to life. So my mother dutifully placed them into water. A few days later, as promised, the brown sticks turned green and sprouted leaves.
If not a miracle, the twigs’ transformation seemed miraculous, like the dead coming to life. Obviously, however, the brown branches were never really dead.
And that points to what may be a basic truth in life: There are many ways to be alive.
The moral of the story for me is about surprise and expectation, appearance and truth.
But it primarily points to the world’s brilliant balance, the necessary inclusion of both bare brown branches and lush, bright green ferns.
This lesson, as it extends beyond trees and applies to humans’ divergent life paths, seems particularly cogent this season. And I seem to be learning it repeatedly.
Last month, as part of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s delegation to the United Jewish Communities’ annual General Assembly, I met two Israeli women who illustrated this point.
Personal or political?
One was Irit Atsmon, a former deputy spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces who came to speak on a panel about media coverage during Israel’s recent war with Hezbollah.
During the session, Atsmon was all business except for one curious sentence — a reference to an “axis of light.” After the session, she told me about her work with two organizations: “Ruach Tova” (“Good Spirit”) and “Mehut HaHaim” (“The Essence of Life).”
Though a former deputy spokesperson, Atsmon describes herself as a non-political person. During Israel’s first war with Lebanon (1982-85), she became concerned about Israeli society.
Lebanon was a good example of how a country can become fractured, she said. “When you are split, you become weak. When you are weak, you invite the axis of evil to come in,” she said.
With some friends, Atsmon came up with the idea of Ruach Tova, an organization that helps place volunteers in Israel with individuals or organizations in need. “It’s based on volunteerism but the basic idea is trying to unite people,” she said.
For Atsmon, the power of interpersonal connections extends to a deeper level in her newest endeavor, Mehut HaHaim, an organization established in 2001 by Israeli businesswoman Shari Arison.
The basic idea is that peace begins within each of us, Atsmon said. “If I’m very angry with myself, I can’t radiate peace to others.”
That principle has wide-reaching implications, as evidenced by Arison’s observation quoted on the organization’s brochure: “When we will achieve peace with ourselves individually and with our surroundings — Together we will reach world peace.”
The organization’s central activity is holding informative and experiential workshops that focus on the “core values” of self-awareness, interpersonal communication, positive thinking, freedom of choice, living the present and discovering the internal balance between body and spirit.
And they have seen great results — with schools reporting higher grades and less violence, and chronically ill people experiencing dramatic health breakthroughs.
That work may sound airy and hopelessly idealistic, but it is a legitimate route to peace, starting in the one domain over which each person has ultimate control — the self.
But then, hours after talking with Atsmon, I met the diminutive powerhouse Moria Shlomot, who is director of The Counseling Center for Women in Israel. We walked together, passing the “anti-occupation” demonstrators protesting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s speech at the G.A.
In talking with me, she praised the protestors for speaking their truth, for standing up for what they think is right. Let me place that in context: We had just walked out of a convention center filled with some 5,000 singing Zionists. The party line was that protestors were unwelcome and we (American and Israeli Jews) needed tight security.
But Shlomot, clearly an ardent Zionist Israeli, bucked that. We walked together in the cool Los Angeles evening and chatted.
Then she smashed to bits the idea of pursuing peace by looking inward when the political solution desperately needs people to stand up and argue, face-to-face, to find overt, external solutions. Limited resources should be spent on programs that work for progress toward peace, she argued.
Atsmon and Shlomot embrace different approaches, but both are motivated by a love of Israel and a desperate desire for peace. And both are focused on the same, general problems.
There are many ways to be alive, I thought later, as I sat in a hotel lobby, listening to the familiar sound of an Israeli political argument, as Shlomot bantered with Gideon Saar, a member of Knesset from the Likud party. Indeed, there are many ways to seek peace.
One reader reminded me of that recently by protesting The Chronicle’s editorial choice to publish a left-wing Israeli perspective about former President Jimmy Carter’s book — which we did after we ran a negative review of the book in a previous Chronicle.
But our newspaper and our community are strong enough to include a wide range of legitimate views. Though others’ ideas may seem to contradict the foundations of our beliefs, we owe it to ourselves to get beyond fear and listen, be challenged, learn from one another and, thereby, grow.
By including opposing perspectives in The Chronicle, we allow our readers to confront and analyze, and to choose their own positions. Indeed, there are many ways to be a Zionist and a Jew.
Different explanations
That message seems particularly poignant as the days grow shorter and Jews all over the world prepare to celebrate Chanukah.
Depending on where one stands, the story and significance of the Festival of Lights may differ. The general story goes like this: In the second century B.C.E., a small band of Jews defeated powerful Seleucid Greek armies, reclaimed Jerusalem and rededicated the temple, profaned by worship of Greek gods.
According to the Mishnah (the compilation of the Oral Law), in the defiled temple, the Jewish soldiers found only enough consecrated oil to light the required lamps for one day; but God’s miracle allowed the oil to last for eight days.
The Mishnah states that the holiday is celebrated because of the miracle of the oil. But the Books of Maccabees I and II tell a different story, focusing on the Jews’ victory against oppression, with no mention of the oil miracle.
Today, different parts of the community home in on different aspects of the Chanukah story. Some Jews only focus on the miracle of the oil and say little if anything about the Maccabees, while others emphasize the heroism of the Maccabees’ struggle against religious tyranny.
Regardless of our explanations, however, there is room in the holiday, and within our community for all of us; There are many ways to be Jewish.
I believe that without “the other,” we are incomplete. We need both arid and lush; personal spiritual work and overt political solutions; heroism and miracles.
As the days grow shorter, may we find enduring light in the glow of the Chanukah candles. And may we honor the many paths that brought us to this season. Chag Chanukah sameach.
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