Why do things change when we put a face to a name? Or we meet a person from a community we’ve never interacted with and then we realize our shared humanity. What happens to our mind and heart when we’ve been taught one thing, and then a real life experience has us change our view? This was my story when I traveled to Egypt and Jordan in 1999 and 2000. I realized I was living with Jewish fear in context of being around people of Arab descent. Because I hadn’t yet been conscious of having friends who were Arab let alone Palestinian, I simply put them all in one category as per my Jewish education – Nearly all Arabs are terrorists and wish to see Jews dead. (More context and detail of this story in a previous blog: “Following the Twisted Path“) What else might be trapped in our stories that may never shift if our curiosity or “accidents” of life never have us learn anything differently? Why do we deny humanity until we understand the universal longing we all share?
Last week, I attended one of the many events that Osama Iliwat and Rotem Levin are offering on their conversation tour. Osama is a Palestinian native of Jerusalem who grew up in Jericho. Rotem was born and raised in Ein Vered, a moshav in central Israel. Both have become peace activists. They share their childhood/young adult stories which disregarded each others’ narrative while growing up in the same land. For anyone whose reference has been only news or social media, hearing first-hand accounts may help bring light to what we tend to call a complicated history. The situation is actually very clear. But the result of unresolved collective trauma, militarized existence and intertwinement with the US and western world makes it very complicated.
We’re nearing the 1-year anniversary of 10/7. The bombing of schools, hospitals and other areas in Gaza that have been designated as safe zones continue to be obliterated and more deaths and terror on innocent life. The spilling of this horror into Lebanon and the tension in the Middle East is all for the protection of the same narrative that puts Israel in a dangerous and culpable position. For some of us, we don’t think much about it and like the past years of our recent pandemic, it’s a distant reminder that life can shatter but we return to status quo. For others like myself, the event was and continues to be so substantial that life holds a deeper mission: 1. to inspire one another to learn, unlearn and relearn, 2. to seek truth and justice for a true journey toward peace, and 3. to boldly speak up for those who’ve been marginalized. What we saw on October 7, 2023 and what is now happening in Lebanon is beyond horrific but is even more devastating due to the history that prevents us from stopping this from happening. We are so entrenched in the narrative that sadly, only more pain and likely more innocent people being killed will lead us toward a resolution.
I’m engaging in weekly meetings with the If Not Now movement and it has felt incredibly liberating to be with like-minded Jewish community who are working for the cause of Palestinian liberation. As the horror expands to Lebanon, we include any Arab countries who are being harmed in the name of safety for Israel. Holding the narrative that all Arabs want to erase you without truly understanding the truth is anxiety provoking and stressful. For those who have spent years in the Israeli army or have family members who are serving, it will not likely be possible to consider the crimes against humanity. To understand the reason for the Palestinian resistance and to witness the loving energy of Palestinian people, old stories no longer have the power to seize the mind with fear. It’s like when you know that the Catholic priest has been harming children yet you question whether you say anything. And then all of the sudden, you have no reason to protect this priest and speaking up is what you need to do. Look how long that took. Look how long it took for slavery to end in the US. Look how long it has taken for women’s rights, lgbtq+ rights. Look at the ongoing debate as to who should be in charge of a woman’s body. We must look at ourselves in the mirror and ask, who am I to believe that harm is the only way to live? Rabbi Hillel’s famous quote which If Not Now is based upon:
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?”
It took some months before I felt ready to join with fellow Jews who were speaking up and speaking out for Palestinian liberation. For a while, I wasn’t clear or confident that I understood enough to be a part of an organization making a bold statement that faulted my Jewish and Israeli communities. But after months and months of researching, listening, and sitting with the feelings, I realized the Jewish values that I was raised with, the Yoga practice that I live by – both offered very clear vision of the catastrophe that was previously obstructed by Jewish loyalty. The values I learned would never make it possible to follow along blindly and silently to what we are seeing. “Never again” is a Jewish phrase that refers to the holocaust where we will never allow this to happen again to anyone. To see this phrase be twisted around to say it’s happening to us Jews again so we must do anything necessary to end it, is the voice of trauma and victimhood versus a sincere understanding where fear is motivating senseless deaths. I am proud to uphold this mission of never again, and to see beyond the colonialism and supremacy behind the narrative of safety.
There will be many events in the coming days that have the potential to signal a bell of hope for all humanity. Likely, there will also be ongoing stunts by the media to express all empathy with Israel on this 1-year anniversary and continue demonizing Palestinian people and continue to misrepresent the efforts by Hamas. I hope to share more thoughts since writing has been an incredibly useful practice to help me ground and focus my energy. I know that as an individual, I can only do so much. But in seeking out communities that are focused on building a world that we know is possible, my nervous system is soothed and the fears that I held while a Zionist Jew, dissolve. There’s no more fear of the “other.” Quite the opposite – I feel love and care for my Palestinian and Lebanese community. I feel deeper compassion for the struggles of all Palestinians who have been displaced. I feel compassion for Jewish people who fled for safety and are now caught in the web of a corrupt ruling power. I feel great hope that those who have not been able to see Israel as an apartheid state, will one day come to understand this as a crime against humanity.
This time of year is the celebration of the Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur and other High Holy Days. It’s a time of great personal reflection and of collective atonement. I’ve always appreciated this signal for a practice that we can embody and remember as something to practice anytime of the year. As with many traditions and celebrations, it’s helpful to have a formal and symbolic moment to honor our human experience. We all make mistakes and forget to live from a place of personal and collective integrity. We lose sight of each others’ dignity and the right for all beings to experience a safe, equitable journey that leads to collective liberation. We have the capacity to forgive and to experience greater compassion for our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, elders and youngsters. When we build these practices into our mind/body, we can recognize these opportunities for healing and transformation as they happen throughout our entire year and across our entire planet. We can recognize our knee-jerk reactions and build in new ways of responding to one another. We see where we have been acting from a place of anger, fear or trauma and seek to resolve these by healing our own wounds then speaking out for the voices that have been silenced. We can choose to be in this flow of the human spirit, or we can look away and say either it’s not our problem or someone else will take care of it. For those of us who feel it is part of our problem and we feel called to help take care of other sentient beings, this is a time to honor our commitment of being on this one planet together. And it’s a call for patience, personal practice and remembering what is possible, as we only move at the pace that brings everyone along.
What if we can find our way along these many paths and know that eventually, we meet at the same point? We realize we no longer wish to cause harm to one another and see that we’ve made a terrible mistake due to a trauma response that corrupted a natural instinct for coexistence. It will require risk and discomfort, two things usually required for change but often steered away from. For those of us that see the road towards peace, we must stand as the lighthouse for those who live with the “us or them” story. I’ve learned to see this as a slowly unfolding flower – not able to be rushed but moves at he pace of our collective conscience. What we are experiencing is an exact mirror of where we are as a human race. I’ll close with a bodhisattva vow that I wrote for myself during a retreat at Spirit Rock many years ago:
I vow to follow the holy unfolding of what is already in motion
I vow to see motion in what appears to be not yet unfolding
Let’s stay connected,
Marc
