Whoever Wins, We All Lose
As a people, we have been deeply divided for a long time. Right vs Left; Religious vs Secular; The Rule of Law vs The Rule of the Voter; Haredi vs National Identity. The specifics change every so often, but the core issues remain the same.
The level of rhetoric and animosity never ceases to shock: insults in the Knesset, using racial slurs, calling people who disagree with you “propeller heads” or traitors, invoking Divine curses against rivals or calling for their names to be blotted out (usually reserved for Amalek), and so much more. That rhetoric sometimes leads to actions that always leave us aghast: throwing a grenade in a right-wing demonstration, stabbing a girl death in a pride march, assassination – need I continue? And despite our recoil from those events, we seem to have developed an amazing capacity to avoid learning from our mistakes. We are a passionate people living in a passionate part of the world, and like many other things we do, we do our passion to the utmost.
One of the saving graces we have is that we are a democracy, so that – at least in theory – every few years (if not more frequently) we have an opportunity to change course. Here’s the rub – the particular kind of democracy that we have means that it is rare for a particular party to gain more than even one third of the votes, and the coalition system tends to drive the agendas toward greater extremism rather than toward moderation, so much so that it is fair to say that without the coalition political pressures the decisions being made and the laws being passed are often opposed by the majority of the nation. And in the next election, when the pendulum swings in reaction, the same thing happens on the other side.
All this is because we want our side to win, and when we do win, we rejoice and try to maximize the power accrued while we have it. What we fail to recognize is that our win will eventually turn into our loss. Even more, like a wrecking ball, the dramatic swings leave behind a legacy of damage. The economy suffers. Education suffers. Programs to help the weak, or the families of wounded soldiers, culture, health systems, national planning – everything and everyone pay the price.
The truth is that when one side and only one side wins, we all lose. When so much of the energy of our win is spent on undoing what the other side did, on vengeance against our rivals, then we are caught in an endless cycle of destruction, not building. As I sit here fasting on the seventeenth of Tamuz, the image in my head is the Talmudic description of events leading up to the destruction of the second Jewish commonwealth. Here’s the oversimplified version. The Romans have laid siege Jerusalem. One group believes that surrender and accommodation is the only way to survive; the other believes that resistance is the only way forward. The resulting infighting – beginning with name-calling and climaxing with burning down the other side’s food supplies – leads to a situation worse than any of the two sides envisioned. When the Sages identify baseless hatred, sinat hinam, as the cause of the destruction, this what they saw, albeit too late. When the disagreement turns to delegitimation and that turns to hatred, then the only possible result is destruction.
I spent many years in the halls of the beit midrash, and I experienced two very different kinds of hevruta (learning partner) disagreements. In one model, each side was convinced of its correctness and tried to convince the other. That was often accompanied by very loud disagreements, ad hominem attacks, and defending positions which they both knew were indefensible. And those arguments rarely led to deeper understandings, only to more deeply entrenched positions. In the other model the two partners were committed to searching together. While they both started with formulated positions, they were truly interested in hearing and understanding their partner’s opinion, often recognizing that there was truth to both sides and trying to figure out how to reconcile those and possibly move forward.
Let us imagine how this could possibly play out in one of the most intractable issues facing us today. There is no question that Torah study (and Torah observance) has been a pillar of our people for thousands of years. Did it always look like today’s Haredi society would like to believe it did? Doubtful, at best. The sheer numbers didn’t exist, and a class of people that large which was economically untenable existed only in the imagination. That being said, the value of the Torah in Jewish history is unquestioned. At the same time, Jewish tradition always upheld the value of life and the extraordinary efforts via human agency to preserve and protect it. When someone is sick we go to doctors, when we are threatened we fight, and when is drowning we go to save them – and not by opening a gemara to study so that a miracle will save them. And while that was always true on the personal level, the last century and the past few years have elevated the need for that to be a prime priority on the national level. Imagine a document (call it a Basic Law or not) which simultaneously affirmed both values, that Torah study was a core value for our people but that the very proponents of that study declare without hesitation a loyalty to the State, its laws, and yes – its army.
Do I believe that this can happen tomorrow? I wish it would, but I am a realist. Will it solve all of our problems? I doubt it, but it would a good start, as each side understands that it is valued and respected by the other. We can begin to try to imagine what we could build together if we were not so intent on winning. For if any of us wins, then we all lose.
