search
Stephen Daniel Arnoff
Author, Teacher, and Community Leader

The Crack-Up and the War

Photo portrait of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1929. Public domain.
Photo portrait of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald used in a year-long print advertising campaign for the Woodbury Soap Company in 1929. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Recently, in another forum, my colleague Rabbi Ed Rettig reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald. In his 1936 essay The Crack-Up, Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

While Fitzgerald had nothing to do with Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs, or Jews, his words offer timeless wisdom. On Sunday, as I raced home from work to watch live updates of Romi, Emily, and Doron’s return to Israel, I found myself struck by these opposing ideas. Hearing the TV broadcast on my phone, I stopped my bike, switched to video, and wept with relief alongside a stranger on the sidewalk.

For those unfamiliar, I won’t bother trying to weave a set of letters to describe how incredible it was to see these three women emerge from minivans into a seething crowd of men wrangled by Hamas to threaten but not attempt — at least this time — a lynch, as they entered vehicles of the Red Cross, which has, incidentally, done exactly nothing of its supposed job day after day after day since October 7.

Yet, alongside the tears we wept on the sidewalk, “my hands,” to quote another person of letters, “were clenched in fists of rage/no angel born in hell/could break that satan’s spell.” Thinking of those still in bondage, both living and dead, and the murderers soon to walk free near that same sidewalk as part of the hostage deal is almost too infuriating to bear.

Herein lies Fitzgerald’s paradox: we must hold two opposing ideas. Israel’s priority is clear—we must free all our hostages from hell. This is our non-negotiable north star. Whatever negotiations are required to keep it in focus, that north star must remain non-negotiable. And in the same breathless moment of seeing a glimmer of hope from that north star, we are nearly blinded by rage: terrorists with blood on their hands are freed, mobs of masked men brandish automatic weapons in Gaza City, and Hamas’ surviving leaders openly declare they would repeat their evil again and again. 

All of this is enough for a person or family or nation to crack-up. If Rachel, Jon, Effie, Oshrat, and countless others enduring unimaginable losses haven’t cracked-up, then neither should we. 

Welcome to 2025, my friends, days of “miracles and wonders” as a writer once said, and also days of “fear and loathing,” as was said by another. Doing the right thing while also accepting the core imperfection of choices that allow the worst of the wrong thing to survive is still the best way to guard our own sanity and humanity, to serve the innocent and suffering in Israel and Gaza, and to live to see a better, brighter day. 

“And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” wrote Fitzgerald at the end of The Great Gatsby. By persevering through these paradoxes, we both honor the past and create a future for those who have survived it.

About the Author
Dr. Stephen Daniel Arnoff is the CEO of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center and author of the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan.
Related Topics
Related Posts