Two things are true

On October 7th, 2023, the Jewish people suffered the worst attack we have had since the holocaust. Back then, everything felt black-and-white: Hamas was the sheer force of evil which had to be completely destroyed by any necessary means, and for that purpose everyone had to go to war, all the wives and mothers and employers had to support the Miluim soldiers in that effort for as long as it took, and the actions that had to be carried out were inequivocal. Coming from a tumultuous political scene, suddenly Israel was united again, left and right agreeing mostly on what had to be done and how. 

Now, however, more than 600 days after that awful Shabbat morning, things are less clear-cut. The country has again managed to be divided about what we need to pursue and achieve in Gaza and by which means. The recent “12-day war” gave us a short respite from the division, however it now feels as if such division has since returned with a vengeance. 

Should the Gaza war continue? What should be the objectives of the war? Should we pursue a deal with Hamas that brings back the hostages at any and all costs? Should we consider partial deals, or should we aim for either a comprehensive deal or nothing? Should we keep the offensive, keep losing our young brave soldiers? Should we listen to President Trump, or do this on our own? Is the current leadership a heaven-sent, or the worst nightmare we have had as a country? 

The other night my husband and I were out at a bar, talking about adult life, and I said I feel like I’m finally an adult, because suddenly it feels like questions no longer have “a right answer” but rather a spectrum of possible, and mutually exclusive, answers. Or maybe they only appear to be mutually exclusive. 

A while ago I was reading Neil Thiese’s book “Notes on Complexity” and came across the concept of complementarity. Quoting Niels Bohr, the “father of quantum mechanics”, Thiese explains that the complementarity observed in quantum mechanics, such as the wave-particle duality of light, could actually be a more broadly applicable concept. Thiese mentions that “complementarity in life would indicate that no single technique or perspective allows the comprehensive view of all of a biological entity’s complete qualities and behaviors; instead, complementary perspectives, which necessarily and irrevocably exclude all others at the moment an experimental approach is selected, are necessary to understand the whole”. 

This refers to biological complementarity, however, one could argue that the concept is applicable to much more. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, in his Ellul Shiur of 2011, mentions complementarity in the context of free will. He tells the story of how Niels Bohr came up with the concept of complementarity, narrating that “[Bohr’s] son was a good kid, but obviously he fell into bad company, and his son stole something from the local shop. And the shopkeeper noticed and came to tell Niels Bohr about it, and Niels Bohr said, “I was sitting there trying to get my thoughts in order, and I found that I was caught between two ways of seeing the situation. What I would say if I were the judge, if I were the magistrate, and what I would say as the boy’s father. And I couldn’t possibly, you know, I couldn’t reconcile those (…). If I were the magistrate, this is what I would have to say. But if I’m just the dad, this is what I have to say”. And that led him to this idea of complementarity theory, that you can see things in two different ways, but not both at once”.

Rabbi Sacks then applies the concept of complementarity to man’s free will and the atonement that G-d grants us on Yom Kippur. Because if we have free will, then how can we be freed of responsibility for what we have done in our own free will? And if we are forgiven, our sins erased on that one day, then how can we have free will, if it comes with no responsibility? Rabbi Sacks explains both things are true, but not at the same time – 364 days a year we have free will, we are accountable for our actions, we have moral responsibility. But there is one day a year when we can say “Hashem, you made me this way, I have no responsibility”. They seem contradictory, but both are true. (The Office of Rabbi Sacks: From the Archives: The Ellul Shiur from Rabbi Sacks in 2011, 9 Sep 2023.)

The idea of complementarity also seems to arise often for me in parenting. My current go-to parenting book, “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy, regularly expresses the “two things are true” principle. The motherhood journey has been immensely challenging for me, a very black-and-white, all-or-nothing mentality present throughout all of my childhood and adolescence and well into my 20s, which suddenly crumbled faced with the challenge of raising little humans. I have had to slowly learn that often in parenting, it’s not about one or the other, but about the existence of multiple, apparently contradictory realities. 

So, as I discussed with my husband that night, accompanied by the calming sound of the Mediterranean Sea on a warm summer night, maybe complementarity is the color of adulthood. Maybe we have to change our thinking to allow two things to be true when seen through different lenses, accept that reality and try to make the best out of it while considering both seemingly contradictory, but not necessarily so, realities. And the fact that they are not fundamentally opposed realities means that seeing both as real and valid is not impossible. And maybe, the thing we need in our young country these days is the slow journey towards adulthood and the possibility of viewing things as one and the other. Of viewing things from different angles and recognizing that accepting my reality does not necessarily mean denying my brother’s. That it’s not “either, or”. 

Maybe we all need to think hard and realize that, as much as we want to believe our own vision for the country and its citizens is “the right one” and all the others are “wrong”, things might not be as simple as that – maybe more than one thing can be true, and if we want to have a well-balanced adult life, be it as a person or as a nation, we need to embrace complementarity and look at things from other perspectives – it might be just what our people need to reunite, reconnect and come out of this stronger, more empathetic and more balanced.