Finding Purpose

Sitting in my sukkah, overlooking the Judean hills, cool fresh air blowing through the palm fronds above, and the fresh pang of something is there. A sense of depth, meaning, and beauty in the world, burning like a bright coal covered in the black ash of chaos, despair, and death.

Meaning, purpose, the ideas and emotions that animate as, as individuals and as the Jewish nation, we need to stare these straight in the face right now. For months now there has been talk about the “ideological battle”, the “Islamic resistance mindset” that must be combated, the war of ideas that must follow military victory. And military victory we have had, undeniably. Maybe not capital V victory, with enemy surrender, a traditional facet of war complicated by Islamist ideology. But significant military accomplishments we have had. Many have said that we need “political” and “ideological” advances to follow, but it seems few offer any coherent unifying ideas. We urgently need to talk to each other and think about this as a nation.

And this is where there is some pain, frustration, and conflict. Because, ideas are contracted small things in a sense, ways of explaining deeper emotions and even deeper intuitions in a series of sounds, letters and words that hopefully convey some glimmer of the original internal meaning. People who live in different worlds have different words, which is where the division begins. And different worlds Israelis live in indeed.

It begins with perhaps two things, which are not unrelated: First, the way foreign powers have divided up and talked about our country for the past couple of centuries. Second, the way that Jews relate to themselves.

White-skinned Ashkenazim from Europe, who absorbed some genetic and cultural habits from a centuries sojourn on the Continent, are the founders of Tel Aviv, and it feels that their spirit lives on there. At least to me, there is a sense in Tel Aviv that the rest of Israel is secondary, far away, and possibly uncivilized, brown, unpleasant, even extremist. It is geographically confusing for me, a recent oleh from the massive U.S, where a drive of 1 hour is next door. In this tiny country the size of a small American state, culturally and historically random slices designated by archaic armistice lines are perceived by many as almost on a different planet. A bustling suburb of Jerusalem feels like a far-out settlement. It can be a challenge to get a Tel Avivian to leave the narrow slice of coastal plain they inhabit. And Tel Aviv feels like one of the least diverse places in Israel, closely following places like Bnei Brak.

And yet. And yet, there is something so uniquely Jewish, so dear about the westernized, high-tech, surfing, partying brothers and sisters in Tel Aviv. Just as there is something so dear and Jewish about the insular, holy, Torah-learning, child-bearing brothers and sisters in Bnei Brak.

Finding our purpose would mean finding something deeper, something more essential that not only does not erase our differences but actually accentuates them in a positive and unifying way, a way that expresses the essence of our different tribal paths, the essence that defines us as the Jewish people.

How do we find this essence? I’m not sure, but I think it will involve more action and interaction, with ideas only then to follow. Seeing, feeling, and touching each other is the way. We need to talk to each other more, to see each other directly rather than through the distorted lens of media. There is not much hope that Bnei Brak will move to Tel Aviv, or vice versa, I think. But then, I look over at my hills, rows of beautiful homes which are neither Bnei Brak nor Tel Aviv, but have glimmers of both. This feels like a unifying ground somehow.