TJS S5 Conclusion - an end and a beginning

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If you want a happy ending, said Orson Welles, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. Well, happy or not, this story is coming to an end. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story. Season 5, Conclusion. Brokenness, a beginning, and an end. So, we've finally done it. We've reached the conclusion of season five. And I say conclusion, but really, nothing is ever really complete in our world, is it? And certainly not the story I'm trying to tell. Nonetheless, it's time to push the stop button on this particular thread of the narrative. What lies ahead is the looming question, in my eyes, whether Am Yisrael will be able to move through the survival Zionism posture, which proved so powerful into a more redemptive stance, whether we can unleash the potential within us now that we're firmly rooted in the land.

So much of that would involve not only holding a posture of insisting that our story is indeed true and real, and in fact that to deny it is at the risk of our lives, but also how to step out of that sense of crisis, internal and external, into the ability to actually tell our story to whomever it is that's listening, no matter what the cost. It's a subtle but profound difference that I leave for the work ahead. For right now, I want to point out that that shift between a survivalist stance and a redemptive posture begins in holding the brokenness we see within ourselves and within our worlds. I mean, on the personal plane, I can tell you both when I look in the mirror and when I listen to my counseling clients, there's a lot of pain in the world that comes not just from being broken, but from our inability to see and engage it.

And of course, on the national scale, I won't just say, read the news, walk the streets, whether it's cities burning with passion and riots, whether it's people storming capitals, or whether it's simply the inability of our political systems to give right expression to our national aspirations. We are in a very broken place, and yet there is hope. I mean, by the way, when we look from the perspective of where we began our story, then the transition into wealth, power, and security, which season five laid out, basically from 1974, 1984, I mean, a little bit more than a decade, it's simply dizzying when we see what's happening to Am Yisrael, both in Israel and America, they're able to affect in the world.

Remember, way back at the beginning of our story, there was a young boy named Daniel, right? He's taken from the ruins of Jerusalem and the smoldering ashes of the first temple. And the vision of God's kingdom he glimpses amongst the brokenness of exile is meant to span all time, including the 1980s, as odd as that may actually sound. Just try to recall. He saw Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the great king who destroyed Jerusalem to begin with, saw his dream of the golden-headed statue, grating down into arms of silver, chest and belly of brass, legs of iron, feet of clay. He saw it as an idol masking the reality of God's kingdom expressed in history. And the collapse and destruction of that idol served as the foundation for a new kingdom to arise.

Let it be soon, let it be now. So the birth, or I should say rebirth, of the Jewish nation as a nuclear power in the heart of the Cold War makes it actually not as hard as you might think to tell a story in which an apocalyptic new kingdom is on the verge of arising. I might even be excited to tell such a story. At times, it seems so. But I'm only willing to do it if we're able to hold the brokenness. Because when we were deep in exile, for most of the last 2,000 years, and even a good chunk of time before that, Israel knew the brokenness of the world. that's because wherever we were it played itself out on us in a disproportionate measure and that's why when we were out there without a root in the land to speak of praying for redemption bound up with catastrophic destruction of all the kingdoms of the world didn't just feel right it felt just just like King David says in Tehillim in Psalms 10 you can check it out shwo zro resha shatter the arm of the wicked and right afterwards says Adonai Melech Olam V'ed that God is king forever.

Those two are bound up, shattering the wicked and building the kingdom of God. But you know what? Right now, certainly in the story of the 80s we just told, we're one of those kingdoms in the world. And the link between present devastation and the hope for a righteous eventual reconstruction feels far less comfortable than it did before we had this kingdom. And I use that word comfortable deliberately in both senses. It's far less comfortable to contemplate all the workers of iniquity perishing when so many of them work for us. Now, I'm not saying that to make anyone feel guilty, and I'm certainly not singling out the Jews or the state of Israel as disproportionate consumers of those wages of sin. I'm saying it because the world system as it is construed right now is awfully far from just, healthy for the planet, or frankly, sustainable for human society.

And we, as a people and as a state, are now more deeply invested in it than any time since the temple stood. In my own personal sub-narrative of the Jewish story, I think a lot about the fact that the defining statement of Ashkenazi Jews up until not so long ago was, Es is schwer zu zayn a yid, right? That it's hard to be a Jew. And what frightens me today is actually how untrue that is. It's way too easy for many of us. And I'm not about to wade into that heated theoretical bait about Jews and white privilege or Ashkenormative assumptions, nor am I presuming to collapse the very real diversity of a European Jewish identity into my own personal experience. Nonetheless, I'm just saying that I myself and my American Jewish peers grew up living off the foam from the froth of the greatest wave of prosperity this planet has ever seen.

We were right in the heart of the country driving it, and I, along with others, took that momentum to the heart of the Middle East. Life is really good. I cannot tell you how much, and that's always a danger. You know, I'm a big science fiction fantasy geek. If you didn't know that about me by now, either you're a new listener or you haven't been paying attention, and one of my favorite books is Dune. And by the way, the new movie, I give it two thumbs up. You got a criticism, you can let me know. But one of the most important lines in the book is actually not part of the narrative. It comes from the sort of larger construction Frank Herbert makes. It's a quote within a quote. Forget it. I'll let it go.

The line is this. God created Arrakis for the faithful. a planet of suffering, to forge a weapon which could actually carve the future into the vision that the hero of the novel actually needed. God created Arrakis for the faithful and the three weeks, so Israel wouldn't forget the suffering which existence entails. And even if we remember it, by being ever so less, slightly less comfortable than usual, showering a little bit less, changing our eating habits, turning off the tunes so that the silence that we trying to avoid when we listen to music can have a bit more presence That is a very important way in which we recognize it not good to be too comfortable You know, but it's uncomfortable to contemplate the apocalyptic collapse and redemption, right?

Because like I said, life is comfortable for so many Jews today, and it's also uncomfortable to contemplate it because it forces the question of how much our present posture, our kingdom, if you will, is actually serving as a base for the kingdom of God in the world. Like Rav Kook taught, is it really Yisod Kisei Hashem Bo'olam, the foundation for the throne of God in the world? And how much are we actually in competition with that throne? Praying for the dissolution of structures built on unjust foundation, or even for those failing to embody a righteous vision, involves giving a hard look at the country we have built and the world which it helps to uphold. Now, no human kingdom is complete or perfect by definition, right?

There's a measure of failure and imperfection built into embodied life, be it personal or national, and I'm not only okay with that, I think it's an a priori, it's a necessary part of embodied life. Nonetheless, the three weeks remind us that, particularly when it comes to the Jewish story, the kingdoms built by Israel will be broken and hopefully rebuilt. if they ever really contradict the divine kingdom in creation, no matter how powerful our kingdom may appear. And that is certainly an uncomfortable thought. So, lest we lose the faith, forget the brokenness of the world, and sink, God forbid, into comfort in our individual and collective lives, God gave us both history and the three weeks. And I'd like to think a little bit about how that brokenness can not only help wrap up season five by recognizing we're a work in progress, but escort us each on our own journey toward a better life.

So really, the question at hand is, what good does brokenness bring to the world? And the first and perhaps most important answer I'm going to give you is none. Absolutely no good. don't romanticize suffering, especially not the suffering of others. Now, I know it says in Tehillim, in Psalms, happy is the man whom you cause to suffer, O Lord. It's really true, but our sages also, when they embraced this notion of the sufferings of love, also left open the door of I don't want the suffering, nor the possible reward they might bring me in the world. And that, by the way, that notion of the reward which suffering might bring is actually an outgrowth of the second half of that verse, which I only half quoted to you.

Happy is the man whom you cause to suffer, Hashem, and teach him from your Torah. Because without the central lesson, the central historical lesson that Torah teaches, the central, I hate the word theological, the central experiential lesson that Torah teaches us, then suffering simply makes life miserable and erodes meaning. What's that lesson? Nechama. This idea that there's a power in the world which allows us to change our perspective on the unavoidable facts of life. You know, nechama is a powerful term. We've spoken about it before, but this is the season in which to think about it because at the end of these three weeks, after hopefully we've been willing to delve a little bit deeper into the pain that we carry personally, historically, and existentially, we read that quote from the 40th chapter of Isaiah in synagogue on Shabbat.

Nachamu, nachamu, amin. God tells the prophet, go out and comfort my people. At the same time, that word nachamu, nachamu, amin, nunhet mem, the three-letter root in Hebrew, for the first appearance in the Torah, actually shows up when God looks down on the world just before the flood and after the failure in Eden and regrets that God created the world. That nechama means both comfort and regret, which really means it means neither. Nechama means to change our perspective after the fact. When it comes to regret, that's simple to understand, right? I thought it was a good idea until I did it. And when it comes to comfort, well, that brings us back to suffering. Because if you fight against suffering and you think it's wrong and you think that not only are you miserable, but you shouldn't be miserable, Well, all you've done is double down on your misery.

But if we are able to face the fact of life, that indeed there is no escape in the human condition from some measure of suffering, the fact that it doesn't tend to be universally distributed in an equal fashion in the world is a deeper question, but it's a fact of life no matter how you slice it. That acceptance, that changing of perspective, that instead of fighting against and thinking something's wrong with suffering, just accepting wrong or right, it is. It's an essential tool for both our personal process of growth and that historical process of mastication, of chewing and swallowing what it is that history gives us in order that we can grow as a people. because if there's nothing good in suffering itself, then we can at least approach this unavoidable reality as a potential source of growth, whether it's through coming stronger, whether it's becoming more sensitive, whether it's gaining the resilience of knowing that even though what's happening now is happening, I am still me, and there is something to be extracted, and at least there's a possibility of comfort in that.

Now, it may sound like a non sequitur, but that's kind of where I'm at right now in this less than linear thought I'm sharing with you at the end of the season. And it's timely to tell you that I'm still chewing on the question of whether Ben Shapiro is the exile arc. The exile arc, historically speaking, was the big Jew in exile, right? It was a leader of the Jewish community which chose to live its life outside of the land of Israel. And if you've been listening to the Jewish story long enough, then you know that that was not simply a product of exile. Well through the Second Temple period, when there was a Jewish commonwealth, there was an exile community in Babylon. There was a Hellenistic community down in Egypt.

And of course, today that we have the modern state of Israel, there is a thriving Jewish community in the United States and in many other countries as well. But this question of whether Ben Shapiro, American Jewish media personality, is the eggs lark is rooted in the discussion I've been having with my dear friend Yishai Fleischer. We've mentioned it before. It's something in me finds it hard to accept this notion that Ben Shapiro really is the leading light of Jews outside of the land of Israel. Now, mind you, he does fit a very important mold. It's the Joseph Daniel mold, let's call it, right? the exile visionary. You've heard this story before. Young boy taken away from home or seeking refuge over the generations.

He's charismatic. He's intelligent. He knows how to speak to power and rises that position as advisor to the king. The ability to, if not actually interpret dreams, but to make dreams to reality, to think about possibilities in policy, to see a way forward. It's something that Joseph Daniel and, frankly, Ben Shapiro all have in common. And like I said recently to Yishai, I don't have a competing candidate for who is the leader of Jews in exile. But nonetheless, something doesn't seem to fit. Now, I just listened to the reason I'm mentioning it now, to the speech that Ben Shapiro gave at the recent CPAC conference, a conservative political action conference in Tel Aviv. It was important, and there were some particularly illuminating points.

The number one that I heard was a posture that both Israel and America are gifts from God Historical expressions of the divine will Something which isn't just rooted in a Jewish past but is rooted in the place in which the American past has those Jewish roots. All you need to do is open the Federalist Papers, which you should do if you've never done, and you'll see that the founders of America didn't just see themselves as bold political thinkers. They were spiritual thinkers who saw their task as giving more perfect form to political union, whatever how you may judge the results. Nonetheless, as much as I appreciate in history and philosophy how both those things are true for America and Israel, I found when he said gifts from God, historical expressions of the divine will, founded in liberty to be true and insufficient.

I just wanted to shout out from the audience, and in brokenness as well. Now you can tell me, listen, this was a speech at what amounts to a feel-good moment in the culture wars. You know, Ben Shapiro was not about to talk about the brokenness of the United States of America, nor of that of Israel in that crowd. Fair. But it was totally absent. And that makes me not only nervous, but skeptical. Because when he went on to list what America and Israel can learn from one another, most of it was socioeconomic. I mean, yes, I understand conservatives are all about that. The reality is, I'm enough of a Marxist to tell you that reality is all about that. But he didn't make any mention of what I see to be one of the most important things that American Israel can learn from one another.

That's how do you fail forward in history? How do you embrace what he called American and Israeli exceptionalism as sourced in our awareness of our imperfect history, of how our failures and our growth go together, rather than dependent on ignoring it and claiming that we've actually never done anything wrong, not anything worth mentioning, at least. Now, that criticism aside, there were some very important pieces which I did hear in the speech. You can listen to it, by the way, on YouTube, or my friend Ishai Fleischer plugged it into his podcast recently. It's not so long, and I think deserves some contemplation. He points out that something which Israel has to teach America is that a nation-state must have at its heart a nation.

And by nation, there's a common history, a common culture, a common destiny, and I couldn't agree more. That lack of common good is what's causing America and so many other societies to fly apart at the seams. By the way, so much of the tension within our own fair country here is our less-than-neat negotiation negotiation over what represents the common, in-common good. Because the way in which we shape that common history, culture, and destiny, the way in which we tell our stories, in my perspective, involves a willingness and a cultivated ability to embrace the broken stories within our societies while simultaneously strengthening the redemptive ones. It's not an easy practice, I admit, but it's a crucial one.

The two don't contradict, because unless you think you've already hit the perfect, then brokenness is part of the package. And the way we tell our stories matters. So Ben also touched on what I've actually long held to be a crucial understanding of our history, a critical frame taught by Rav Soloveitchik in his book, Koldo Dido Fake, also translated as fate and destiny. And that's what he was speaking about, the idea that Jews live in a covenantal reality, one that embraces both fate and destiny. Fate means you can run, but you can't hide. Or as he put it, you can ignore history, but history never ignores the Jews. And that's a message I hope that people hear loud and clear. We can pretend here in Israel that all is well.

We can throw up big fat walls, make ourselves strong, and the world will rush by without us. But history comes knocking sooner rather than later. And over there in America, where many Jews, particularly of a progressive bent, would love to ignore the arc of history in order to free them to build the world which they ideally would like to see, well, I got news. You can ignore history. But history never ignores the Jews. The other way he put it is that no matter how much Israel wants to be like the other nations, it will never be so. And in my eyes, so long as one remembers that, one's got a solid root in the Jewish story. That's the fate side. He defined destiny as the notion that Jews, and in this case Americans, have a unique mission to fulfill the covenant.

However one may envision that covenant for America or for Israel, practically, Ben wanted to say that we're called upon in both countries to build societies rooted in biblical values, bound by clear principles, and yet open and accepting to a broad definition of liberty. And, you know, I'm sure we differ on where to place the boundaries, how to balance the equation, and what actually biblical values might be. But fundamentally, I agree. This notion is we are a mission-driven people. Now, here's the real kicker, though. Because I see our mission as Jews as not just driven from Israel, but it needs the Jews to actually plant their roots in Israel. And that's really, I think, where we divide, although in all fairness, it strengthens his status as exile ark.

You know, because Israeli journalist Amit Segal actually got to interview Ben Shapiro after his speech. And at a certain point, he put the question to him quite bluntly, Why won't you make Aliyah? Why don't you come home to the state of Israel? And the answer was a decent answer. He said, well, fundamental principles of the United States are good. They're eternally good, worth upholding. And frankly, Jews should live wherever they can be the greatest light unto the nations. I have millions of followers. I'm a cultural warrior. He's not just a cultural warrior. He's a general who's not about to abandon his troops and certainly not willing to see the field of battle. Now, that's all well and good. It's one word that bothered me.

That word eternally, where the fundamental principles of the U.S. are good, eternally good and worth their upholding. They're certainly worth upholding. and many of them are good, but eternally flashes like a red warning light on my dashboard of history. Because Ben Shapiro, in many ways, matches that mold of exilic heroes, exilic leadership like Joseph, like Daniel. He could be the exilarch, just like Yishai insists now more than ever having heard that speech. Certainly, no Jew has a bigger platform. But I wonder when I hear that eternally good message, Is Ben Shapiro able, like Daniel, to read the writing on the wall? So where does all these musings leave us, whether in the three weeks, at the end of season five, or in world history?

First and foremost, suffering is reality, but don't idealize it. Don't romanticize it, and certainly don't encourage it in others, and avoid it at their expense. Nonetheless, never ignore its potential as a driver for growth and even for releasing a redemptive power. Here in the three weeks is the time to let ourselves feel the brokenness, brokenness of our own lives, the brokenness of the world, to let ourselves look these things in the face to the degree it's possible. Don't ignore, don't justify, don't explain. Just try to see what is. Try to hear the pain being expressed. try to recognize the reality no matter how sad, painful, or frightening. In terms of the end of season five and world history for that matter, you know, those things come together personally for me.

I recently heard a fantastic phrase on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. It was an episode on integrity in the life of a leader. Highly worthwhile listening Send me an email robmikefoyer at gmail I happy to share the link with you In fact send me your thoughts in general there But I mentioning his name now because the sages teach us that one who quotes a statement in the name of the person who made it brings redemption closer to the world. And isn't that what this is all about? So like I said, I heard in the name of Andy Stanley before I tell you what he said. I'm also so tempted to reveal to you the name of the person who shared the podcast with me who unbeknownst to you is actually a silent partner in this project.

Call him the hidden producer, but I'm going to respect his desire for anonymity. Hameving, yavin, as we say. Those who know, know. And those who don't, don't need to. So Andy Stanley says, here in conclusion, that it's direction and not intention that sets our destination in life. Now what does that mean? It's a truth of personal integrity. You can have the best intentions when you're acting in the moment. But the reality is so often life is defined by the decisions that we've already made, the ones that set us onto the path where we are now, not just because they constrain the options we have and the intention we can bring, but because in many ways they fix where we're headed no matter what we intend to do.

And just as much as that's a truth of personal integrity, it's a truth of history as well. The world in which we live today in so many ways was born, shaped, and set upon its path long before we had any intention or even agency as individuals or as a nation. Now, you might say, well, that sounds like a recipe for fatalism. I mean, YOLO, as my daughters love to say, you only live once. Why not just do what's good for me? Ignore the suffering of the world, because if my actions can't do anything about it, then what else am I supposed to do? But that's where our story of destruction, of rebirth, of the relationship, let's call it, between suffering and redemption actually come to the fore? Because yes, the directionality of where the world is headed may have been set before me, but that doesn't mean it's going in the right direction.

And in fact, the very point that Andy Stanley was making is it often means we end up in a train wreck while we have the best of intentions. And when the directionality of where the world is headed leads to catastrophe, that's when the power of intentional action or redemptive action is actually set free. When the world breaks down, when crisis strikes, well, the level of presence and intention I bring to the freedom that actually comes from disaster often, right? Holy Christ-a-tunity, like Homer Simpson would say, that's when it gains its real power. You know, I was recently in Ramallah, right? It was a fantastically troubling and interesting experience, right? There's a listener out there who shall remain nameless for now, who did me not only the great courtesy, but the deep kindness of showing me around.

And I saw many things, many of them. If you want to talk about it, be in touch. But for now, not the least of what I noticed was how broken our relationship as a people is to the land of Israel and all of the people living here, Arab and Jew alike. because there in Ramallah, we have no sovereignty to speak of, but we do exercise lots of power. And just like way back in the Garden of Eden, when Adam exercised his agency and then refused responsibility, when he ate from the tree God said not to, and when God said, did you do that, said, oh, she made me do it, that we see that the capital sin of the human consciousness is to exercise agency without taking responsibility. So too, when we look around in our land, see our power to shape the reality, and see how we're unable to look the responsibility of what that means in the face, oy va voy, that's a broken situation.

So at the end of this very intense experience, or maybe in the middle, I don't exactly remember when I asked, I asked my guide, so tell me, bottom line, what can the Jews do to bring this conflict to an end? You know, Ben Shapiro was actually asked by some listener, right, what to do about the conflict in Israel-Palestine, And he said there was no solution, rattled off a bunch of what I felt to be somewhat straw men where there's no one to negotiate with, and ignored the reality of lived experience of millions of people. So here's a different perspective on what Jews can do to end this conflict, because what he said was, stop seeing the Palestinians as Amalek. It's a simple but profound answer. Now for me, on one level it speaks to me because it's the narrative approach which recognizes that the ways in which we tell our stories can bring destruction or deep healing.

And it's an answer that goes to the heart of what I mentioned right at the beginning, what I'm really going to focus on in Season 6, how Av Mishael has to make a choice whether we're going to move out of the survivalist mode and into the redemptive. And in order to be in a redemptive mode, on some level, it means stop seeing Amalek anywhere at all. I mean, after all, God's initial declaration after the first victory over Amalek was, Vayomer, Right? Right? It's an oath. The hand upon the throne of God, there will be war between God and Amalek forever. but then we're told to erase their memory, meaning the wholeness of God's throne. The real kingdom that we're all, whether you call it God, whether you call it a sustainable world, whether you just call it a better place for everyone, what we're all working at involves erasing Amalek's memory.

Letting go of the idea that there is any other way than building one world together. And for the Jews in particular, It means letting go of the need to struggle against our enemies in order to know who we are. In exile, that defensive posture didn't become one of many strategies. It became our central identity. At the same time, it's important to note that we're going to need the other side of this conflict to stop playing the role of Amalek so well. and with the world being as broken as it is that could be a bigger ask for them than many Jews are willing or even able to contemplate nonetheless I'm all about striving to open a space in people's hearts and souls and as individuals and as a nation to tell the possible redemptive to find the story which doesn't deny the past which doesn't ignore the brokenness but which nonetheless reaches within the fragments of what is and surfaces the possibility of what really could be.

So that's what lies ahead in Season 6. Understanding how the past shaped our present world, seeing where it's whole and where it's broken, and telling a story that embraces both in order to unleash the future redeemed. Tam Vinishlam. That's the end of Season 5. I want to thank you all for sticking with me. I want to invite you to reach out, RobMikeFoyer at gmail.com. I want to ask you to help me make Season 6 possible by going right now to my website. You'll see a button in the upper right-hand corner that says Be a Patron. You can click on that to give a little bit of per-podcast support or be in touch with me. I'm happy to dedicate shows in the season ahead. I'm happy to tell you how you can make a one-time donation if the commitment is a little bit too much.

I'm happy to talk to you in my spiritual counseling practice about why commitment is too much for you. So anyway, thank you to those who are giving their money. Thank you to those who are about to go do it right now. Thank you to the Land of Israel Network. That's thelandofisrael.com. They're building a center for global transcendence in the art of the Judean mountains. Thank you to the Pardes Institute. That's p-a-r-d-s.org.il for throwing the doors of the Beit Midrash open as wide as possible. And thank you for listening all the way through Season 5. We've made it. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story.