Thanks South Africa!

Today I am officially leaving South Africa. It does not feel as strange as I thought it would. Perhaps this reality has not fully hit me yet, but I honestly feel as though I am ready to go home. I do not mean ready in the sense that I have been waiting around to leave and I am finally getting the chance, I do not mean the kind of ready that a person forces upon themselves so that they can retain a shred of sanity in transitioning from one environment and set of circumstances to completely different ones. I think that this feeling is one produced from a healthy balance of acquiring knowledge and wanting to apply that knowledge in the life that follows the experience in which it was all attained.

I have been living in one of the most stunning cities in the world for the past five months. Yes I have enjoyed the traveling and the constant presence of mountains that dramatize and beautify every scene, but I think this experience has been defined by so much more than seeing a new place and acclimating to a new culture. My life in Cape Town has been an opportunity to confront issues that exist in my own life and in the world at large. I have read about this country, its traumatic history, its rich and ever-changing culture, its countless populations and the relationships between them that continue to foster an uneven hierarchy that was expected to be destroyed fourteen years ago, so that I could sincerely begin to understand the failures of this place and the simultaneous potential it has to be a beacon of reconciliation. I have immersed myself in the Cape Town Jewish community which has shed light upon the value of participating in a community for the sake of its survival, the difficulties and restrictions attached to being a Jewish woman and the true beauty of being a nomadic Jew who has the potential to find a home anywhere in the world. I have committed myself to my UCT experience that has provided me with a multi-dimensional academic understanding of my surroundings. I have continued conversations with so many different people and situations in my ‘normal life’ that have undergone significant changes and will allow me to merge my life in Cape Town with that which has happened in Elkins Park, PA and at Brandeis. This experience is so much more than a trip, a vacation, a break. Rather it has been an opportunity to learn about myself, about the world, and how I might possibly start going about fusing these two things together so that I can start to make a significant contribution to the world.

In an attempt to try to wrap this experience up with a nice red bow, though this seems like quite an impossible task, I would like to share a few specific lessons that I will definitely leave here with:

Though I feel as though I was aware of this before, I have learned to become extremely thankful for the amazing people in my life and those who continue to enter my life. To be surrounded by different people in different environments who expose me to new viewpoints and experiences and who challenge me, is something that I do not and hopefully will not ever take for granted. I am a product of my surroundings and thankfully I have so often been surrounded by people who, as a result of our relationships and interactions, never allow me to remain stagnant in who I am and in what I believe and who have supported me in the decisions I have made in attempting to explore these aspects of my being.

I have learned that in order to have a well-informed opinion about something it is necessary to not only understand the viewpoint with which you are aligning yourself, but that you must be acquainted with the ideas that you are opposing as well. There are 749 sides to every story, to every experience. It is not enough to acknowledge one opinion when the context of it is dependent upon so many others. It is easy to feel the freedom to have something to say about everything in the world, but the majority of us the majority of the time have so much more to learn about these topics. Yet we are so often content with the knowledge base we already possess, with the ideas we have heard third-hand and the brief headlines we read from one biased newspaper once or twice a week. Knowledge and explanation are endless. There is so much to learn in the world, we will never know everything and I have learned that I need to admit the limitations of my own ideas and beliefs and understand their lack of relevance to other people who have come from different backgrounds and circumstances. Admitting limits seems to reveal a strength in my opinion rather than a weakness, it demonstrates our capacity to allow each person to be entitled to their own experience without taking ownership over it ourselves.

I have learned that a much as I want to save the world and make a large impact, I am confined by a different set of restrictions that surround who I am and who I am not. Perhaps I may try to do so someday, but as a twenty year old, upper-middle class, white, American, college student, I have very little to offer little kids in impoverished Cape Townian townships, I have little to offer to people who look at me as someone who has monopolized resources that they have no access to. I can learn about different situations, I can empathize with various populations, but I have no voice in a community I am not a part of, I have no right to discuss problems and solutions that affect people who live in completely different circumstances. My identity is inherently tied up with a colonial past that has directly oppressed the people of South Africa. No I have not participated in this process, this dehumanization, but I reap the benefits offered by the people who did. At the same time, though if I am willing to put forth the effort, perhaps I can build the capacity to make a difference in small doses and in communities that are not only my own but ones that I commit myself to for a long period of time admitting that I can never determine the fate of someone whose circumstances I do not understand.

On a more practical level, I have learned a great deal about a country and a continent that is often ignored and simplified as the heart of darkness. I do not remember what I though of South Africa and Africa in general before I arrived, but I now know that this country and is an intensely complex conglomeration of malleable social structures that continues to grow and that, if set on the right track, has the potential to be a true light unto other nations in which so many different people, lifestyles, cultures and beliefs may one day all live side by side in harmony. I have learned that while Africa is often clumped into one entire continent by the Western world, each country within it fosters different circumstances and identities that must be seen independently from each other (and yes I admit that I can really only say I know a little about south Africa and a smidge about a few other countries nearby). This understanding is seems to me to be strongly influenced by the line between civilized and barbarian that is often very clear cut in the Western world. Yet this polarized understanding is not only incorrect in its elitist assessment of a twisted world order, it is extremely detrimental to the people who reside in each society. Westerners often elevate themselves and dismiss all Africans as static, traditional and wild which justifies colonization and infusing their civilization within societies that have rich cultures, rituals and beliefs that are in turn compromised and sometimes destroyed completely. This is a colossal problem, for once more, the world is not as set and as black and white as we are taught. It is complicated, it is layered, thus we need to recognize these different layers and not perceive them through the lenses of other social systems. Therefore I think that the solution reverts back to the acquisition of knowledge and the need to obliterate the prism that has polarized the world and the discourse surrounding all its problems into the two categories of good and evil.

Something else that I have discovered for myself is that I need to be in a place, a land, among a people that I sincerely care for and whose value system I am both in agreement with and can be inspired by. South Africa is in need of immense repair, it is sodden with problems and leadership who often fail to acknowledge them, but it is a country that understands its need to rebuild, it is a country that acknowledges its incompleteness and continues to strive for the democratic and equal objectives preached in 1994 when the beautiful ideal of the Rainbow Nation emanated throughout the country infusing a hope that has fluttered into the background recently. Yet amidst all these problems, this country is still proceeding, is still pushing forward to desperately attempt to better the lives of all of its citizens by admitting its faults and implementing new plans that, though they are often more damaging than helpful, are manifest recognition of this rebuilding process. Throughout my time here, I have developed a genuine concern for the future of this country and the well-being of those who inhabit it because I am in awe of the efforts made by South Africa to create a democratic society for all. When the black majority was handed power, they sought to reconcile with their oppressors who remained their neighbors, they did not take revenge, they did not enforce a plan of retribution. This country is currently at an extremely important stage in which each individuals decisions and actions toward each other represent something much bigger. I think that this reality is truly amazing, for it compels each person to consider the consequences of their choices, it amplifies the importance of each person.

I am extremely appreciative of my upbringing in America, I know that the resources that I had access to throughout my life are the product of my surroundings, so I do not mean to bash my motherland, however, I think that the individualism, consumerism and elitism that permeate so many different aspects of American life are forces that perhaps may collide with the ideals that I hope to base my future community, my family life and my occupation upon. When I say individualism I refer to the lack of responsibility we often feel toward one another and when I say consumerism I mean the discontentment that forces people to constantly be focusing on what can fill the voids we have been conditioned to constantly pinpoint. This is not necessarily a reference to purchasing material objects, but constantly feeling as though we need more than what we actually need in order to make us happy while so many others have so much less than what they need. And when I say elitism, I mean a mentality that seems to me to have been cultivated in the education of every American child that promotes an Ameri-centrism that justifies unjust acts and beliefs about other groups of people and ways of thinking. Therefore it seems quite easy to live a life in America that does not motivate us to care for each other and to feel as though our actions as individuals serve a greater purpose.

I know that I sound very idealistic and “I-went-abroad-and-now-everything-has changed-and -I-hate-capitalism-and-America,” but at this specific point in time I see an alternative that, for me, has the potential to offer the meaning, the value system and the opportunities that trample upon these forces that often blur our vision and complicate our capacity to care for each other on a micro and macro level. As of now, I think I want to live in Israel. That is not to say that Israel is devoid of its problems, in fact it may have more than the U.S., but they are problems that align with the same issues I have in my own head and heart, they surround faith, conflicting realities and truths and the seeming incapacity to coexist. The conversations that must take place surrounding these issues are ones in which I have begun to participate and ones that need to progress and evolve. While at times the state of Israel seems to doomed into eternal turmoil, I feel as though the constant fight to put an end to it and at times to keep it going, is one to which I have a responsibility, is one to which I am bound. To live in a country that’s inherent existence is entangled in discussions of a conflict of this nature is something that seems to add a new significant dimension to life, is something that elevates ones being into a collective that has a higher purpose. The diversity, the calamity and the uncertainty of both South Africa and Israel have produced an intrinsic value that ties each South African, each Israeli, and his or her actions together, that attaches meaning to every decision made and every war waged. Though I have benefited more than words can describe from growing up in America, I do not feel as though my existence as an American provides me with this same significance.

I have learned that as much as I may have tried to convince myself otherwise by initially embarking on this journey, Judaism is my core. I came hear knowing that I would acquaint myself with the Jewish community in order to have places to travel to on Shabbat and friends to go with, but I figured that my general abroad experience would be of a primarily secular nature. This is not to say that Judaism would not be a constant presence but that it would be more a personal dimension of my life here that would compel me to make decisions independently and allow myself the opportunity to analyze and place the religious transformation I had experienced before this. I would not have imagined that being here would in itself activate a completely new transition process within my Judaism. I would not have though that my exposure the Jewish community would have prompted me to shift from such a personal Jewish identity to one that is very much intertwined with the community at large and the need to participate in its maintenance. Ultimately, Judaism is in everything that I do and it allows me to constantly contextualize and justify the decisions that I make. It is my conscience and it what I crave. I continue to want to learn more, to attend shiurim, to talk about it, to battle with it. It is my defining feature, my essence and I feel so lucky to be able to say that. I feel so lucky to be committed to something that constantly forces me to question myself and my actions, to something that protects me, to something that allows me to understand how to live in a way that I feel is meaningful.

Along that same topic, I have learned to fully appreciate the insight and leadership of Rabbis. I think prior to this experience I had been quite hostile in my head toward Orthodox, authority figures, but being exposed to such intelligent, dynamic rabbis here who sincerely care about the welfare of their communities and who embrace the importance of their role in a shrinking Jewish population has allowed me to cultivate a sincere sense of gratitude toward them. I will forever be amazed by the ability of many of the rabbis here to work together toward a common goal and recognize the value that lies in combining their different beliefs and mindsets with the intention of accommodating different types of Jews who have different needs and may be turned off by one authority who is the sole voice in his community. Quality leadership has so much potential to generate excitement, a newfound meaning within individuals and collectives and an underrated connection between the ideals and traditions of Judaism and the world at large in which we all function.

Speaking of cool Rabbis, this past Thursday night I went to hear Rabbi Akiva Tatz, a well-known rabbi who has authored a bunch of books, speak at a shul in Sea Point. Wow, his discussion of happiness in a troubled world (which seems quite cliché I know) was just one more incredible opportunity to consume new ideas and beliefs that I can continue to relate to my own life. He said that being in a constant state of joy is about knowing that there is always something you can be doing in order to grow. Even in situations where it seems as though sorrow would consume you, like mourning, we are given guidelines and rules that allow us to do something meaningful by helping the soul of the person who has passed on continue to rise to new spiritual levels since there is no longer a physical body to do so for the soul itself. As long as we have something that continues to bestow meaning upon us we are able to be in a state of joy, of spiritual progress, because it confirms our hunch that there is something higher that we are working towards. It confirms that though we experience pain and negativity, we are constantly working toward something greater, something founded upon a great deal of meaning that can perhaps be propelled forward by both the good and the seemingly bad.

He elaborated on this point by saying that being happy during the journey is dependant upon the anticipation of getting to the destination. Being happy when you arrive is dependant upon the accomplishment you feel from the journey being so difficult. The meeting point of journey and destination is thus the pinnacle of joy because it brings these two states of happiness together. This is a reflection of olam habah, for it strips us down to what we have accomplished in this world. In the next world, we are confronted with the versions of ourselves that have reached their full potential and are then face to face with the gap between what we were and what we could have been. The world that will be is a repeat of what was without all of the other gashmiut to hide what we have become or what we have failed to become. He beautifully related this to what purpose Shabbat truly serves. It is not a time of rest from the hard work that we have been engaging in for the week that preceded it, rather it is a stoppage in the process of development, of progress, so that instead of focusing on what will be, we are able to find the joy in what already exists. This day provides us with an opportunity truly relish in all that we have been given and what we have helped create. This is why the root of Shabbat, shev, means to sit (this same root is also found in the word yeshiva), because though sitting is often perceived negatively as a halt in progress, we are allowed to remain stagnant to sit, in a place of Torah and of avodat Hashem because though physically we may not be moving forward, spiritually, we are clearly elevating ourselves. (Wow, I have become so frum, I just keep reiterating shiurim, you must think that all I do is go hear Rabbis speak. I promise while I have done my fair share of that I have also taken complete advantage of all that this experience had to offer.)

I have also learned empirically through this blog that writing is a necessary outlet for expressing my emotions and understanding my own experiences in a greater context. I have not bought much while being here and I have also not taken very many pictures. Perhaps this is because I am cheap and lazy, but I like to give myself a little bit more credit, I think another reason may be because this blog is my primary memento of this experience. I will forever be able to read this and look at the few pictures I took and the others which I stole from online (legally…I promise), for I have encapsulated my life here in a way that would be belittled and simplified by a little statue of a giraffe. I don’t know if I will continue it, but I know that this specific avenue of expression is something that will always be a huge part of my life. If I do choose to continue, I think I might keep the title and the context. While I clearly will not physically be in Cape Town anymore, I think that I can shift my understanding of this place to a state of mind that allows me to analyze so many different experiences and set of circumstances at once in conjunction with one another. So perhaps this specific alley of communication with my own mind and other people in my life has not seen its end just yet.

I think that in the end one of the most important things that I have learned is that I am content with who I am. I think I have felt this in some way for a while, but being here alone with no real roots present to hold me up, I have had to make decisions completely independently of every other force in my life and I am extremely happy with the decisions that I made and with the things that I committed myself to here. I am excited to see how I can build off of all of what I have learned here and all the lessons that I have acquired.

Study abroad experiences are often seen as a pause from a person’s normal life. While at times I did feel as though this experience took on that identity, I think that I was ultimately able to use this time constructively in dealing with identity issues, understanding of my surroundings, relationships, religious struggles and so much more; I was able to live my life in Cape Town in conjunction with my life on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I am not returning to a world that was stagnant while I was away, I am going back to a world that has grown, that has become more complex, and I feel as though I am departing having undergone the same transformations. I have been forced to develop an awareness that must be applied to everything here, an awareness that will continue to force me to ask questions about where I am, who else is here, who is not here and why perhaps that is the case. I don’t think that can stem from simply being in a new place, rather it is the product of submitting to a much more multifarious experience that has challenged me in countless ways. Yes, I am a little apprehensive about transitioning back into American culture, remembering which side of the road to look at when I cross the street, not taking half hour naps in between surfing from one internet site to another, but I think that I am leaving with more than what I am leaving behind. I am bringing back lessons and ideas that I am eager to incorporate into the future that awaits me.

Thanks for joining me on my journey. Cheers!

A few important lessons..

I hope everyone feels spiritually renewed after a meaningful Shavuot. I had quite a good experience at my favorite shul in Cape Town. It was a very nice way to bid farewell to the wonderful community of Sea Point and to have an opportunity to really reflect on what I have gained in a Jewish context while being abroad, to once more appreciate the amazing hospitality of the people I have met and to begin to think about how all of this has been internalized and perhaps changed my perspective on certain things, on both a micro and macro scale.

I would like to share a few of the interesting ideas that I learned over Shavuot that somehow have factored into this whole process. One of the shiurim I went to explored the identity of Moshe through the lens of his forgotten name. His name which refers to having been drawn out of the water by Pharaoh’s daughter was only bestowed upon him when he was incorporated into the royal family of the Egyptians. So then what was the Jewish name (which reflects the true essence of he or she who possesses it) of this most famous leader of the B’nei Yisrael? The midrash says that the answer can be found in the pasuk that states that when the child was born, he was seen as “good.” There is further discussion about what this means (either in the midrash or in the gemarah, I don’t remember) that relates this statement back to the days of creation when God would use the same word to describe what was created on each day. That interpretation of good had a dimension of perfection attached to it. So was this good here, this tov that perhaps may have been his name, implying the same features of Moshe’s identity? The Rabbi discussed that this was a different good, a good that was not necessarily inherent but rather one that was bestowed upon Moshe by God, a good that did not stand on its own but was rather the result of a specific decision made by God to make this being good and allow that good to develop through a relationship with God. Thus Moshe’s name was not tov, rather it was tuvia, which means “good of God.” Moshe was not a being whose goodness could be separated from God but was rather dependant upon this link which teaches the lesson that our inherent qualities do not define what we are but can rather be improved upon and transformed so that we can utilize them correctly through a relationship with God. If this is the case in the development of Moshe, than kal va’chomer, all the more so, we can channel our qualities into some sort of spirituality that can strengthen and transform the characteristics that make up who we are.

Wow I feel like I have started to sound so frum from all this Jewspeak. I suppose I am ok with that. Continuing on a similar vain, another really interesting topic that was discussed was the reason why Har Sinai, the mountain at which the Jewish people received the ten commandments, possesses that name. The Gemarah records a conversation pertaining to this question. One rabbi says that perhaps it is because the word Sinai is similar to nisim, miracles, which refers to the great miracles that God performed for the Jewish people at this location. But this idea is rejected because for the generations that followed those physically present for z’man matan torateinu, (though we were all spirituall present apparently), this is not a name to which we can relate, for we did not experience those miracles first-hand. So another rabbi suggests that perhaps it is called Sinai to reflect the siman tov, the good sign, that this event represented for the future of the Jewish people. This suggestion is also rejected because the receiving the Torah was not just a good sign for the Jewish people, but is an ethical system that has the potential to benefit the entire world. The dismissal of these two ideas hints at the Gemerah’s purpose to create a system of law and legend to which every generation of Jews can understand and incorporate into their lives. The Torah and all of the processes that followed its giving, are supposed to construct a framework that continually provide guidelines for how to operate in a changing world. In the spirit of this idea, the final suggestion of the root of the name Har Sinai is found in the word sina, hatred. This seems quite strange since hatred is negative and receiving the Torah is one of the defining highlights of Jewish history. Rashi elaborates on this idea by saying that Har Sinai is the place where the non-Jewish hatred of the Jews was born. Still this seems quite negative, but the Rabbi said that the hatred is a result of the goodness and wonder of the Torah. All of the other nations of the world, which all supposedly rejected the Torah, developed a jealousy directed toward the Jews for possessing such an invaluable, remarkable system of rules. Thus the sina that developed at Sinai both communicates the morality that the Torah can potentially create for each generation as well as dictate how it can, and needs to, be used to activate these ethics in relationship to the rest of the world and implement the torah in all parts of life, both Jewish and secular, to transform this hatred into appreciation and demonstrate how this system can benefit other nations instead of being a source of hatred and conflict. This idea is at once an affirmation of Jewish life, a suggested explanation for the constant threats that confront Jewish life and maintenance and a challenge to positively implement it within the world at large.

While I suppose this idea is linked with a Jewish elitism (that has the potential to generate other issues) I personally often find very problematic, I think that this dialogue, accompanied by an extensive summary of the Talmudic process by the Rabbi, really reflected the various positive dimensions of torah study. Engaging in this activity is not just maintaining a link with our past but it is allowing that past to be relevant to the present and understanding the true timelessness of the amazing gift of the torah; an entity that offers necessary meaning, accountability and connection. Both of these discussions really expose the Jewish value placed upon the practice of looking deeper, elevating the profane to a level a sacred, and understanding the complicated nature of identity. Throughout Shavuot these were three themes that continued to present themselves which allowed me to start developing a deeper understanding of why tradition and the texts related to it are so necessary to preserving the wonders of Judaism. I say all of this a little hesitantly because I personally am extremely confused and conflicted over the balance between stagnancy and fluidity within Jewish law, text and life. I constantly ask myself, is it necessary to feel the need to uphold all of these things for the sake of Jewish endurance if they do not comply with a code of ethics that I feel committed to? However I have become more and more optimistic that the only way to explore and perhaps answer this question is by continuing to learn and to struggle.

The three themes listed above that I believe are intrinsically linked with Torah study also happen to be important lessons that have extended into so many other parts of this experience and ways of thinking. Looking deeper, elevating the profane to a level a sacred, and understanding the complicated nature of identity, are three practices that I believe are necessary to a variety of different experiences. As you may have noticed, I have tried to incorporate these into my classes, volunteering, general exposure to South Africa and the people who inhabit this wonderful, complicated and troubled country, developing a relationship with the Cape Town Jewish community and general exploration of how all of these things can influence my own identity. In doing so I have often, made mistakes, contradicted and confused myself, but I have also discovered significant truths about myself and the world that I never knew. And the most valuable lesson I have learned is to continue to learn (cliché number 623). I like to think that I have always been an avid consumer of the different resources that the world has to offer, but looking back on my introduction to the practical context of my surroundings, I admit is something I have only begun to develop since being here. I think this new process perhaps can explain why I have jumped from topic to topic, opinion to opinion overwhelming myself and perhaps you. I have been wrong about things, I have changed my standing on certain issues and feel like over the past few posts have taken what seems to be a more right wing position on certain things than I may have intended, but I suppose this is all part of the learning process. I want to know about the world in a new way, I want to understand economic policy, military strategy, the life paths of world leaders, dimensions of poverty, wealth and the spectrum that lies in between. I am hungry for all of this in all of its forms, not just through lenses that I adopt as my own, but I need to welcome voices that challenge what I think is true and just and lave me feeling like I know less than I did before being exposed to these opinions.

Another idea that was presented over Shavuot that I think sums a lot of this up was that our Jewish lives and identities strike a balance of that which is inherent and that which is created through free will. Being Jewish is something that we cannot escape, but it is our choice to define what that means to us, what kind of responsibilities and burdens that places upon each of us. We choose whether or not to receive the Torah, we choose what that means to each of us. It is up to us to decide what to do with the resources presented to us. It is also up to us to understand that we all have access to different resources and thus our decisions are a product of very different circumstances.

With a few days left in the city, country and state of mind, I will continue to sift through all that I will be leaving and all that I will be leaving with. But something tells me I will just end up more and more confused and in an ideological no-man’s land. I suppose for now though, at my young age and limited base of knowledge, that is not such a bad thing.

South African…Afrikaans Ulpan: ( I seem to be running low on cultural terms so…)

Biblioteek – library

Cheers!

The end is near....

So I am officially a college senior, though it sounds strange to focus on a solely academic transformation when it seems as though so many other processes have taken place since arriving in South Africa, for now it is something in which I take great pride. This past week was consumed by studying and test-taking, which in the end was not as trying as I would have expected. Though the South African educational system has proved itself to be of high quality to me it seems that what is expected of you in return as a student is rather simple. Two out of my three tests were regurgitations of paper that I have already written, which made studying rather unnecessary. But in the end I do think that this system allowed me to cement all of the ideas that have been festering in my head and now if you ever want to know about Black Consciousness, Robben Island, export oriented industrialization, the economic evolution of Mauritius or the historical development of Eastern Bantu speaking societies in sub-Saharan Africa throughout the Iron Age, I am definitely your gal. Ultimately, I am extremely satisfied with my academic experience here; the subjects that I learned collectively painted a very multi-dimensional image of South Africa and some of its neighbors that truly allowed me to begin to develop an understanding of my surroundings in a way that unfourtanately far exceeds my awareness of the country and society that I actually live in. But maybe now I will have the motivation to begin to build that up as well.

So now that one very significant aspect of my time in South Africa, I am left with eight days of my semester abroad to start the process of placing this whole experience within a greater context. I find it fitting that Shavuot happens to be a large chunk of that time period because reception of the Torah also seems to be quite a significant culmination that has forced us to consider our spiritual positioning over the past 49 days (and perhaps a much longer period as well) as an entire people and as individuals as well. At a shir last week, I learned that though Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur are the days that determine our welfare for the coming year and thus require us to cleanse ourselves and request forgiveness for our sins, the annual fate that is solidified during these days is one of a primarily physical nature. Our subsistence and survival is determined in this time period, but our spiritual destiny is actually one that is decided on the annual occurance of the reacceptance of the Torah, Shavuot. Even more significant, we are personally in charge of our own fate, we make the individual choice to experience a year of spiritual fortune or emptiness. Taking on the commandments of the Torah is quite a hefty task and one that we need to commit ourselves to newly every year, for we cannot get caught up in the routine of banality that strips this decision, this relationship of its significance. Shavuot is not just a memory, but a chag that heavily impacts our decisions and our alignments.

While this, along with many of the topics I have discussed in the past, is perhaps a little exaggerated and dramatized, I think that this way of thinking perhaps adds an interesting new dimension to a holiday that we often associate with yummy cheesecake. Instead of it being a day that only commemorates the event that transformed the people of Israel into a nation, religion, civilization all simultaneously, it provides us with a unique opportunity to be active participants in that process. Understanding the importance of the Torah which I would expand to an entire system of ethics and morality, in whichever way you choose to interpret it, is something that strongly influences who we are as Jews and as human beings and because of this it seems quite beneficial to partake in such a defining, intense act. This is why the period of the omer exists, so that we can prepare ourselves for this undertaking and so that we can make an informed decision regarding our own status for the coming year.

I think that now is a symbolic omer for me personally, a time to really start to think about how much I have learned and how I can bring all of this back with me into the life that has been put on pause in a sense for the past five months. While I suppose I have been doing this throughout my Cape Town adventure I think that I have been constantly obtaining very separate experiences and mental mementos and in order to truly contextualize and translate these into my normal life, I think that I need to step back and look at the broader picture to truly understand who I am now in relationship to who I was five months ago. I know this sounds quite cheesy and dramatic, but hey I have since accepted that perhaps I am these things, and I should stop apologizing for it (unless you think I shouldn't stop that since it gets to be a bit much....just kidding). But I think that each experience is one that deserves this period of consideration, of pulling out the positives and the negatives and finding them the necessary place in the whole of one's identity, one's history, so that it is possible to understand and decide what we have the potential to accomplish in the future as a result of what we have already experienced. I think that this process is quite synonymous with what is asked of us in realtionship to our Jewish and spiritual identities on Shavuot.

I think at this point, I am at a loss for how I could possibly begin to sum up this experience. So much has happened, so much has been consumed, so much has been purged and I think that I will bestow this gift of a short blog post upon you in preparation for a more extensive and thorough update of my status as a result of this experience that will have to be written in the near future.

South African Ulpan:

narchie - umbrella term for the family of miniature orange-type fruits such as tangerinea and clementines.

Cheers!

Chag Sameach!

Today is Yom Yerushalayim, I probably would not have known this if it were not for a fantastic event that happened in my favorite shul in Cape Town last night. I don’t remember ever attaching so much value to this chag but after my experience this year I think I may begin to in the future. The entire Cape Town community came together, Rabbis and members of every shul, to rejoice in an often forgotten holiday. In celebration and commemoration of the reclamation (wow that could be a rap) of Jerusalem that occurred 41 years ago today, on the 28^th of Iyar, we davened, sang, danced and ate (obviously) together as one unit, one people. While anything related to Israel, Jerusalem and war are clearly loaded topics, especially in South Africa (as you may have gathered by now), this act of remembrance seemed to transcend politics for one evening and rather than fight, we could collectively recognize the miracle of this event that happened six decades ago. Morasha (the shul where this took place) imported a Rabbi from Johannesburg, the Jerusalem of Cape Town that apparently has more kosher restaurants per Jewish capita than any other city (just a fun fact for you), for the event. When I heard the community was bringing in someone I was confused because there are so many dynamic Rabbis already here. But as Rabbi Lawrence Perez spoke, I understood why many were excited for him to impart wisdom upon all of us, and more significantly, I began to understand the true miracle of the event we were memorializing.

In a commanding yet compassionate tone, Rabbi Perez historically set the stage for the six day war. Now I know, that ultimately Israel was victorious against Egypt, Syria and Jordan (whose collective army was assisted by soldiers from four other Arab countries), I know that the remarkable strides made by Israel into various territories are an important aspect of the controversy that persists in the politics of the region today, but the way the Rabbi set the stage for the inevitable war made me question if such a victory was at all possible. A Rabbi had once told him that in preparation for an inevitable war in which Israel would fight alone against an Arab defense force made up of soldiers from seven different countries all salivating over the likely destruction of the lone Jewish, middle Eastern democracy, he was sent to a famous park in Tel Aviv to halachically convert it into a cemetery, for those that already existed would not be enough to accommodate the expected 50,000 Israeli casualties. This was a war in which a budding teenager of a country, of an army somehow defended itself from an established, cooperative, world force and in the face of probable, complete destruction. Not only did the IDF hold off this seven country army, but they captured The West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem in six days. How was this possible? How were only around 700 soldiers killed (not too diminish the importance of those lives)? How could looming, inevitable obliteration of a land that was starting to provide hope for a healing Jewish people translate into enriching a country and an entire nation with a new sense of strength and pride?

Rabbi Perez answered this question in a fashion that froze me in my seat. He said that the American army collects strategies and plans from every war that has ever been documented in order to assess and widen the possibilities of its own military actions. One war is not included in this collection: the six day war. When an American general was asked how this could possibly be, how could the tactics of the underdog of all underdogs not be important in considering military engagement, he answered that you cannot learn from a miracle. There was something else driving the army of the Jewish homeland toward victory, a power that’s presence transcends the physical world; this victory was a modern day miracle.

Since the events of Chanukah 2,200 years ago, the Jewish people have lived and subsisted without any manifestation of the finger of God. Jews have been expelled, tortured and killed without any divine intervention. The chosen people have been physically disconnected from the God who chose them and still this nation has endured. Yet this generation is different from those of the past two millennia for we have witnessed a miracle, we have seen the finger of God in action.

He then went on to forge a connection between Yom Yerushalayim and Shavuot, which arrives exactly one week after. He discussed how when the Jews arrived at Mt. Sinai, Moshe said to them atem ra’item, you have seen the miracles of God, you have been freed from your shackles and placed on the wings of eagles, now you are ready to accept the Torah, you are ready to submit yourself fully to a God who has proved the unfathomable completeness of what God is capable of. As we prepare to reaccept the Torah in one week’s time, we must recognize that we have seen miracles as well. We have a land that substantiates the existence and power of God, we have lived through or her first hand accounts of an unexplainable military victory. We live in a remarkable time of atem ra’item. Rabbi Perez strengthened this point by pointing out that our generation has generated an unprecedented movement of Jews who have returned to their religious roots, who have felt this physical, celestial presence here on earth.

At its roots, Shavuot and receiving the Torah are about understanding the true power of God and committing to what that God tells us to do, for we are at God’s mercy. Yom Yerushalayim allows us to once again remember the miracles of our generation, not distant stories of our nation’s past, not narratives in which memories only live on in the pages of a sacred text. Rabbi Perez then discussed how in Megillat Esther, the Jews are said to have reaccepted the Torah after the death of Haman and the ensuing war. The reason for this parallels the mission that we are about to embark on in the coming week. When one witnesses a miracle, present in the Purim story, present in the 1967 six day war, it provides us with the opportunity to reevaluate our connection and discover the true power of God. Our generation of atem ra’item places us in a remarkable historic position that has been absent for more than two millennia.

I felt stuck in my seat after hearing Rabbi Perez speak. I sincerely felt heavier and that more effort was required of me to move. I had never before understood the unfathomable wonder of the six-day war and the subsequent reclamation of Yerushalayim. This experience and belief has been supported even more by my latest literary adventure, a political biography of Yasir Arafat. Before reading the book, I had a general idea of Arafat’s indecisive nature and constant use of “diplomacy” to appease both the Western world who for decades believed they could make an ally out of Arafat who would someday reform his ways and loyalties and simultaneously convince the Arab world of his unwavering devotion to the destruction of a Jewish state. But wow, how did the world let this pattern repeat over and over again? He and the Palestinian Liberation Organization whose primary objective for decades was simply to destroy Israel without any plan of empowerment, mass mobilization or country building, simply moved from Arab country to Arab country exploiting there hospitality and exacerbating most problems that have existed in the Middle East for the past half of a century. When looking for a dwelling place the PLO would set up camp in Jordan and then stage cross-border attacks on Israel which Jordan condemned because it led to Israel conducting defense attacks on not just the PLO but Jordan as well. Though Arafat, the unchallenged leader of the Palestinians, promised to stop, he did not hold to his word, a pattern he repeated so often in the future. Jordan finally was fed up with the danger Arafat’s presence posed to the country and told them they were no longer welcome. The PLO proceeded to settle in Lebanon and replicated these actions and were then expelled after causing the virtual destruction of Beirut. Arafat constantly shifted his loyalties to suit his own interest and that of his high officials to keep them loyal to him. Once dependent upon Egyptian support and than Syrian support, he would not hesitate to break these allegiances. And all along Western countries saw his nationalism as some sort of indication that he was more moderate than the Arab countries who relied on staunch religionism (Islamism) and would continue to discuss peace and change.

AAAHH!! When reading this book, I constantly grip it tightly and sigh to myself at the corruption, apathy and selfishness of this man. Granted I have not finished the book, I clearly am commenting from an extremely limited base of knowledge and the book that I am reading is perhaps written from a specific point of view, though Barry Rubin seems to be quite a credible source. But it seems to me that if ever someone would have challenged him and posed some sort of plan to better the lives of Palestinians as opposed to focusing only on the destruction of Israel which the PLO had no plan for translating into a successful formation of a country, perhaps the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not seem as complex and, at times, hopeless. The hate that Arafat fostered toward Israel or his entire life, though he suppressed at some points to further his own gains, and his ability to instill that same hate in the hearts of so many Palestinians who were hungry for leadership even if it would never lead to a better life and better conditions, seems to have set the scene for the dangerous and desperate political landscape of Israel today. It also has revealed the hate that existed among all the Arab countries in the time of the imminent six day war. The only thing Arafat can be thanked for in my mind seems to be that he caused internal turmoil among the Arab countries so at times they could shift their hatred from Israel to each other. Ultimately, this book has terrified me about the disdain that is directed toward Israel and has simultaneously compelled me to believe in the generation of atem ra’item, for it truly seems that God must have been active in defeating such strong hate and destruction. I know that I am not qualified to discuss these things and perhaps I should not try, but the primary reason I wanted to discuss the Arafat book is because it all the more so convinced me of the miracle of the six-day war, and the miracle that in all its difficulty and criticism, Israel endures…and it must endure, for it is a huge element of what ties all Jews together.

Thinking back to a rally that I attended last week dealing with the plague of xenophobia that continues to leave tens of thousands of fearful refugees throughout South Africa (many in Cape Town) with empty stomachs, inadequate materials to survive the ensuing winter weather and uncertain futures, I realized the importance of a homeland, of a place that if kept safe can keep all of us safe, that can offer us asylum if ever we were to need it. While 18 different representatives of different religious, political, medical, human rights, refugee groups and others spoke out in solidarity against the embarrassing, destructive and dehumanizing attacks, I was overcome by a sense of pride in being present for such a wonderful display of community and mobilization around a common cause, but simultaneously by fear, a fear for all of those whose cause is being discussed but not actively confronted. For hate runs through the veins of some South Africans, a hate that is jeopardizing the future of so many refugees who had high hopes upon arriving in the African beacon of hope. What can be done for those who escaped danger and arrived in a situation that welcomed them with the same dangers? Where can they go?

However, another experience I had last week allowed me to see the commonality that we all share in a very unexpected context, providing me with a hope that perhaps the hate that threatens the peace of so many regions in the world could perhaps be destroyed through understanding our similarities, our ubuntu,our nying je. Along with my Religion, Sexuality and Gender class I visited the Claremont Mosque, the only Mosque in all of Cape Town that allows women to sit on the same floor as men. It was an extremely interesting experience. The women all covered there hair with scarves which was quite an interesting sight in its own right since most of us were noticeably white and American. The prayer itself was a simple Friday afternoon service, but it seemed quite amazing to welcome the group of us who were simply interested in seeing what a Mosque service is like. I don’t believe that any of us are Muslim, but we were a part of this community, a community made up of those forging connections with God, those listening to words that would compel them to be better versions of themselves. I personally felt in watching the devoutness of so many of these men and women that shine through in their intense and passionate facial expressions, that the prayer that I offer in such a similar form and context perhaps ends up in the same place. There are similarities in our differences, there is perhaps a shared struggle to be inspired, to improve, to feel like we belong in a structure larger than ourselves. Islam is often associated with the negative, but being present for religious ritual, hearing the Imam renounce xenophobia, feeling the warmth of the desire to be better made me feel, were experiences I could relate to, were experiences that gave me hope that perhaps we can embrace that which is both different and similar, instead of simply fearing and hating that which is not like us.

Obviously this idealism has its limitations in political, social and economic realties. But at that moment in the mosque, it seemed possible. Perhaps the solidarity among all of us is just another miracle in our generation of atem ra’item that we can both hope for and attempt to bring to fruition.

You have clearly read enough. Cheers!

Have Some "Nying Je" for South Africa

So classes have ended along with volunteering and for the next week I will be studying, writing papers and hopefully reacquainting myself with Cape Town, a city that is unfortunately quite different from the last time I immersed myself in it just a few months ago. The past few weeks in the whole country of South Africa have been pretty scary. Due to a huge influx of migrants who have recently fled from Zimbabwe as a result of escalating dangers that the ongoing election catastrophe has generated, violence and hate has broken out in various parts of the country.

First some background….For those of you who do not know, Zimbabwe’s March presidential election between one of the longest ruling dictator (28 years) in the modern world, Robert Mugabe, who has been primarily responsible for a rising 165,000% inflation rate in a once up-and-coming economy and whose actions have caused 80% of the population to be unemployed, and the head of the brave Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, has yet to be resolved. Tsvangirai originally won 48% of the votes while Mugabe won 41%. While this outcome necessitates a runoff due to the absence of a winner of a majority vote, the MDC refused to participate in one for a while because they believe that they did in fact win a majority as a result of certain votes not being counted after Mugabe’s party ZANU-PF waited many days and weeks in some cases to report the results. The Zimbabwe constitution states that a runoff must take place within 30 days of the election and 3 months later, both parties have hesitantly set a date, however, under conditions not very conducive to a free and fair election since ZANU-PF has been employing physical means to pressure MDC supporters to shift their loyalties. Violence has spread throughout the country and has spawned a huge amount of displacement, leaving tens of thousands of people with no home and very little hope.

In search of safety, many of those who were displaced migrated to South Africa. Yet upon their arrival, South Africans began to attack them for coming into a land in which resources such as food, water, shelter and employment are already quite scarce. The violence began in the Johannesburg township of Alexandria two weeks ago and has spread to Durban and Cape Town. The continuing aggression has not only dispersed geographically but the criteria of the victims have broadened. Now all refugees from various African countries who have come both recently and not-so-recently (some of the victims have been living in South Africa for decades) have become extremely vulnerable to what is being characterized as a plague of “xenophobia.” Since the start of this outbreak less then two weeks ago, an estimated 17,000 people have been forcibly removed from their homes and at least 50 have been killed. It is an extremely scary time for so many people who migrated to the Mecca of a struggling continent in search of a better life. Instead of opportunity, they have been confronted with hate and torture at the hands of other Africans, and have been confronted with violence that was called by one article the worst outbreak in the democratic era (since 1994).

I think (and I acknowledge that my opinion has many limitations due to a small scope of understanding in regard to the complexities of the specific situation and relationships between different Africans in general) that while there is clearly a great deal of hate towards and fear of difference attached to the attacks, using xenophobia as the keyword in this situation takes away from the economic implications that need to be appropriately addressed in this conversation. Countless South Africans already do not have access to the resources they need and to have newcomers invade their territory and threaten this already extremely-restricted accessibility is terrifying. Xenophobia is a glaring problem that has existed for centuries in Africa and needs to be dealt with but not at the expense of the recognition of the millions who remain impoverished after 14 years of waiting to relish in the perks of democracy and the thousands more from other countries who share the same dream, not only for their sake but for that of their future generations. This is a glaring example of the remnants of the Apartheid system still festering in the ravaged, dangerous townships and the boiling hatred between different African cultures.

The ANC government has been criticized for reacting too slowly and passively to the outbreak. The president of the ANC, Thabo Mbeki, has also been extremely criticized for his passivity and vagueness regarding the actions of Mugabe and ZANU-PF, not only in relationship to the election but also throughout all of their corrupt, violent and immoral actions that have been happening in Zimbabwe throughout Mbeki’s presidency of the supposed superpower of Africa, whose placement of potential pressures on Zimbabwe to be better might actually serve a constructive purpose. This may hint one of the many other problems emerging in this country; the unchanged disparity between the rich and the poor. While many black people have become affluent as a result of the 14 year old democratic system, many who fit into this category (government officials often included) have simply joined the rich whites who live in their own word and approach township/rural Africa as a completely different dimension that is disconnected from the world in which they live.

AAAH!! The world is drowning. “Xenophobia.” Earthquakes. Cyclones. Skyrocketing gas prices pocketed by nuclear Iran. America’s increasing trillion dollar debt and two-front war. I have started to legitimately become scared. Thankfully constructing a fear generated by all the world’s problems is not very feasible (where do you start?), so it has not been able to consume me. But is it fair that because I am lucky enough (at the moment) to not be directly impacted by any of these things (not to mention poverty, war, hunger, abuse, loneliness and all the other wide-spread tragic circumstances that are rampant wherever you are)? Is it fair that I can discuss the AIDS epidemic that is estimated to kill 6 million Africans by 2010 with the protection of education and money (though these two things do not make you immune obviously)? I feel so patronizing writing these things down being almost certain that I will not be the victim of this xenophobia, and that I am not actually a member of a vulnerable population to so many other problems in the world. I feel so patronizing because as much as I don’t think I am and don’t want to be, I am the oppressor, I am taking resources away from millions and millions of people who need them, even though I do not mean to.

Yet at the same time, these issues are pressing in every circle for different reasons. This past Friday night, the sermon I heard exposed me to exactly why acknowledgment is so necessary. The rabbi began by speaking about the escalating violence that is happening so close to us and I expected an exciting “social justice with sprinkles of Torah” speech. Instead, without ever referring back to this situation, the rabbi discussed how we can react to these situations by appreciating the privileges that we have access to as Jews. The three examples he gave were Shabbat, family and affluence. Besides for the fact that these things are not criteria for being Jewish and thus not all have them, the main problem was that he was basically saying that the circumstances that those people experience are pretty crappy, but look at what we have. What happened to loving your neighbor as yourself? I mean out of all the quintessential Jewish ideals we have, that’s got to be pretty high up there right? I do not know if this is the message that he meant to get across but to me this clearly demonstrated the same type of gap between the rich and the poor of this country; white Jews have the luxury to look at massive crime, poverty and displacement and see it as a sign of how lucky we are to be members of the chosen people. Personally, I think that being Jewish should make us realize that everyone deserves to have the blessings that we have, not just as Jews, but (for a lot of us) as members of a privileged population. We are all God’s creatures and if we do nothing else, I think we should acknowledge these horizontal relationships and internalize the suffering of others and the awareness of how terrible it could be to be forced to leave your home and be consumed by the uncertainty of where you will be sleeping the same night or if you will have food to eat or any job to ensure subsistence for the coming week.

This reminds me of a really beautiful concept I have recently read about in a book written by the Dalai Lama. He discusses the difference between the popular understanding of the virtue of compassion and Buddhism’s interpretation of their equivalent, nying je. Compassion is about internalizing the plight of a sufferer. Because compassion is often used as a synonym for sympathy, it connotes a feeling of pity for that sufferer. Yet the Dalai Lama says that this pity creates a sense of condescension, of hierarchal distance between the sympathizer, the subject and the object that is suffering. But he describes nying je as a feeling of gentility, generosity, affection that is rather a form of empathy that links the person who is suffering to the person who has it. Nying Je is not felt for someone, but rather with someone. Because Buddhism teaches that all is vanity until we are stripped to our naked existence and thus we are all the same for all beings possess no more or less than anyone else, no physical items, no status symbols. We are all essentially the same and as result we are connected to every person, we are the same. So nying je is the acknowledgment that we are responsible for each other not by choice but by our very essence as living beings. The Dalai Lama also says that this term strattles the line between empathy and reason which are often seen as mutually exclusive but in Buddhism, they are dependent upon each other. True empathy allows a person to be honest, and experience a process so that righteous emotions are not spontaneous, but rather a product of reason and honorable exploration.

I thought this was such a beautiful idea that really allowed me to understand what my primary problem with the rabbi’s speech was. Humans so often sympathize and create a distance between themselves and the person whom they direct their compassion to. But that seems to be a pretty self-absorbed way of thinking when in actuality we are all responsible for one another and cannot be separated.

Hmm…so I can’t come up with any forced connection between all of this and the next paragraph that provides necessary sensitivity and practical linkage between the two and for that I apologize and hope you might still read on….So I found myself randomly reading a book a few days ago written by contemporary Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim. Specifically I was intrigued by an essay he wrote about self-actualization and human understandings of God. He said that most people view themselves as a subject in the world. As a result everything has to be incorporated into their life, modified and judged by the subject to serve a purpose as an object. Often people treat God in this fashion and decided that they need to incorporate God, as a malleable idea, into their lives. This leads people to think of self-actualization as a process reliant upon one’s own ability to be inspired by different aspects of God and Judaism in their own terms. Yet God is not an object, an idea that we can rework to feel closer to realizing our true selves. By definition God is everything and defines everything. So how can we define God? God is the subject and we are the objects. If we believe in a being that created the world, how can we decide how God functions within that world? If we view God as an idea that we can adjust to our own inspiration we contradict what God is. Thus, self actualization happens by acknowledging our status as objects that are not the actors but that which is acted upon. Now I do not think that this understanding is correct for everyone, but I do feel like it spoke strongly to me because for a while I have taken it upon myself to create my own understanding of God while still believing in a God that is responsible for the world and all that resides within it. But that does seem strange and self-important to me since God cannot be all-powerful yet subject to my judgment. I think the subject-object difference connotes a certain level of accountability. If one is only accountable to him or herself then it is easier to justify one’s actions, even if they are questionable. But if God is your ultimate Judge and thus the Torah is a blueprint of how to be judged favorably and live a good life, then it is easier to understand the difference between right and wrong (though this is not the only way to know the difference but I think it can be a successful tool in my opinion, but its totally ok if you disagree because I respect your entitlement to your own opinion). I do not know how this new way of thinking will present itself in my own life and thoughts but I think it is quite an interesting paradigm shift.

So instead of Ulpan, I have a question that I would like you to ponder….

How are Nying Je and Ubuntu (the shared humanity I discussed months ago that Desmond Tutu referred to in his book about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission) similar or different?

See y’all in 3 weeks..and by you all I guess I mean Amercia…Cheers!

p.s. so the new pictures are stolen...but I promise I did so legally and only because I wanted you to see Robben Island and Khayelitsha (I have stopped taking my own pictures because I am too cheap to buy batteries, so this is quite a good method)

uch...tourists and neo-liberalsim

Hi friends!!! So I finally physically went somewhere that might be of interest to all of you. Today I traveled via ferry to Robben Island, which is where Southern African political prisoners of different countries and different liberation organizations such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe, Armhad Kathrada and thousands more were imprisoned as a result of their involvement in the struggle for freedom. Because the population that the tour is aimed at consists of a lot of tourists, which was quite apparent when looking at the camera-carrying, safari-hat-wearing, German-speaking tourists and embarrassingly observing their inquiries to take pictures of even the guy selling the tickets behind the counter, the information that is provided by the guides seems to qualify as common knowledge if you have read or learned about the struggle. Yet, even though I knew most of what was said such as the favorable food rations given to the coloured and Indian prisoners in comparison to the black prisoners to cause internal tension, the restrictive size of the cells, the dehumanizing nature of the purposeless, busy work that was required of the prisoners everyday for thirteen years, being there and feeling consumed by the eeriness, the rawness, the isolation of the island allowed me to see the experience of imprisonment and belittlement through a physical and experiential (since our guide actually served a sentence on the island) lens rather than just draw images in my head based on literature.

The island is only 12 km away from Cape Town (which is the equivalent to a little over seven miles I think for all of those Ameri-centric readers unfamiliar with the metric system used by most worldly inhabitants), so it the beautiful panoramic view of the city and its stunning, mountainous backdrop is quite visible from a lot of places on the island that the prisoners had access to. I would think that most people who spend time in prison are completely cut off from the outside world, but on Robben Island, the normal life they were accustomed to, was being waved in the faces of those who did not have the capacity to touch it, to be a part of it. The prison administration made sure that there was no way for the prisoners to communicate with the outside world and to even know what was going on within it, yet they were constantly reminded that what once was still is, which our guide, who experienced this, described as being emotionally torturous.

The island itself is extremely strange and gray. The few colors that ever existed on different structures on the island have all faded. There are random cemeteries located all around where the bodies of the lepers who were quarantined on the island in the early 1800’s are buried. There is a small village where the prison staff lived with their families that is currently occupied by past prisoners who now work for the prison as a museum. It must be quite difficult to live free in isolation in the same place where all of your freedoms and dignity were denied to you. The complexities of race relations, emotional and physical torture, Apartheid manifest, prisoners rising above their circumstances to forge bonds and knowledge and so many other layers that developed in this place are not reflected in the bareness of the walls and the simplicity of the landscape. What Robben Island once was condenses all of the horror and simultaneous beauty of the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed, along with all the oppressed that the oppressor tried to turn against one another. As terrible as this restrictive, repressive environment was, it housed thousands of incredible people who sacrificed and fully gave themselves to their cause and to their people. Standing amidst such ugliness, I felt overcome by the greatness that overwhelmed it.

Visiting Robben Island, along with so many other physical and academic experiences, has revealed a remarkable truth about South Africa and its history; what this country is today, in all its fall-backs and triumphs, is built on the backs of a significant amount of individuals who grew up in circumstances that deprived them of so many skills and resources that seem so completely necessary to people who mature into national heroes and revolutionaries. It is inconceivable in Western countries that illiterate adults, people who grew up with limited education and without running water and electricity, who were denied access to crucial ideas and tools of self-empowerment, would ever be revered and beloved leaders. Yet in South Africa, that is what has happened. The government ministers are not Harvard graduates with 46 PhD’s, many of them are guerilla freedom fighters who were once deemed criminals and served decade long prison sentences. They are accessible, they are the hope that any person, from any upbringing can become something…and I do not mean in the way that John Edwards’ father was a mill worker. No disrespect to the Senator, but he lived in a time and place that offered him sufficient education, nutrients and treatment as a human being, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki (South Africa’s president) and so many others that have built up the new South Africa and will continue to do so did not have access to these luxuries. South Africans today who create organizations in townships that feed, educate and empower their fellow citizens who still live without so many necessary resources are doing so while also lacking access to these things. Though it is a lot harder to get to a place where one can start to think about the well-being of other’s because their’s is not ensured, individuals with nothing have provided so much for those in need.

The necessity for individual and communal engagement in South Africa has also become extremely evident to me through my Poverty, Development and Globalization class at UCT. The state of the South African economy is extremely poor. In 1994, when the African National Congress took office, they inherited an isolated economy that was drowning with no international allies. Having been shunned from the global village that had become so strong and interdependent over the decades in which the Apartheid regime was spending all of their mind-space, time and money on subjugating and oppressing the majority of the country’s population, the new government with limited diplomatic experience had to join the new world order to have any chance of surviving. In order to do so, they had to become involved in international trade. In order to accomplish this, they had to adopt a Western, neo-liberal mentality founded upon an open economy that relied on foreign investment and no direct state intervention (I think that this is a result of the communism-equals-evil phenomenon that has swept the globalized world). Yet at the same time, the new government was redistributing land that was taken away from the black majority that left 4/5 of the South African population with 13% of the country’s property during Apartheid. This new plan of land return led to tribal ownership of a significant amount of the South African landscape. This meant that foreign investment would have to generate without the promise of any actual ownership over the land which became communally owned in the new order. As a result, the private, external investment the world promised to South Africa in adopting a market-led, neo-liberal economy never materialized at the intended scope. Because, as I have learned with my new toolkit of practical ideas that are actually relevant to the reality around me unlike most classes I am used to taking, no self-interested private investor is going to invest in a venture in which they are denied ownership. So to sum up South Africa is in quite a pickle.

Various initiatives have been developed to deal with this problem, a few of which I just wrote a paper on, but for the most part the economy of South Africa is in need of a great deal of help (largely because of elitist, capitalist countries..uch). Two different initiatives relying upon two different ways of thinking that have specifically been implemented in a virgin, untouched, gorgeous region of the country called the Wild Coast reflect why every member of South African society that has the potential to bring about positive change. The first is a mineral mining project that has been implemented by an Australian company that has the potential to bring in 200 million U.S. dollars over a 22 year period. However at the same time the project is extremely detrimental to the natural resources and landscape as well as the native inhabitants of the specific area. This has caused severe unrest among the population since this neo-liberalist project dependent upon outside investors with no concern for the local communities. How can the lives of the poorer sectors of society that these new policies are supposed to benefit improve when the actions taken to do so are against their will? How can this project give these impoverished people the money and empowerment they need when they have no say and involvement in the economic ventures that supposedly help them?

On the other hand, there has been a rise in the development of community-based, eco-tourism that relies upon the community members to develop the programs and activities while partnering with a local NGO to organize the venture. By using local workers and residences to house the tourists, along with horses and hiking trails already within the possession of the community, the inhabitants are able to be involved in the development of their own communities while being provided with jobs and not needing to spend money on external equipment detrimental to the landscape and the community atmosphere. This initiative was extremely successful before the chairmen became corrupt and started investing in the mineral mining project. This has led to the virtual death of this project while also reflecting the choice of neo-liberalism over community-based, sustainable development that not only brought money into the community but provided members with jobs and a sense of internal ownership over their project. These people made a difference for a while, before stupid capitalism destroyed their efforts to continue (he success that hows now faltered reminded me of how the top layer of Rambam's 8 different levels of tzedakah is not related to giving money but to provide a sustainable livelihood and skill set to people who did not once possess these necessities. This allows people to be self-reliant, to be responsible for creating solutions that will imporve their circumstances and those of the people around them).

While it is clear that knowledge, education and experience is needed in leadership, it seems to me that each person can contribute to their abilities and resources to lift South Africa out of the economic hole it is falling deeper and deeper into. Neo-liberalism is not working. What has worked for many other countries (or at least for those who were already well off and became a little richer), cannot be perceived as the saving grace of South Africa, a country in a completely different position than other developing countries, who are also in completely different positions than others that are grouped together. Each country needs to rely on its own resources and needs to be given the freedom to develop in a way conducive to their own realities. One of the resources South Africa, I think (not that my opinion means much), must now rely upon is its citizens.

Another reason why this is relevant to the “every individual matters here” discussion is because my professor in this course is constantly telling the class that we need to pay attention to these realities, because not only do they have a great impact on “us” (I don’t really include myself considering my five months here will sadly not make a significant different in South African society) but also because this generation of UCT students (which by the way is an extremely diverse population consisting of so many people of different ethnicities, classes and races) is the first post-Apartheid population who is now receiving one of the best educations this country has to offer. Students in these classes, learning about these subjects, are the some of the ones who are going to be relied upon to affect change and confront the issues that are plaguing the country. South Africa is in trouble, and it is the responsibility of each person to find a cure to the ailments that are related to internal struggles but also to the arrogance of external forces.

Building a stronger country is not dependent upon credentials, it is dependent upon people committed to their cause who can think of creative solutions to problems. These skills can be developed in so many places and can be augmented and cultivated in many others, but making a difference is not limited to a specific population or experience. While volunteering in Khayelitcha this week I had a really cool experience that somehow, at least in my head, confirms this. Two boys in my class named Akona and Sibogheleni were fighting over a notebook. They each said that it belonged to them and I had no idea who was the true owner. When I asked them whose it was, Akona said that I should just cut it in half so they could split it. I then took the book and gave it to Sibogheleni. This reminded me of the story in the Tanach when two women come to King Shlomo both claiming to be the mother of a child they have brought with them. When trying to determine who the real mother is, one says to the king “why don’t you cut the baby in half and give each of us part of it?” Shlomo then realizes that the other woman must be the mother because she would prefer for the child to be given to the other woman than severed in two. After class, I went over to Akona and said the reason that I knew that the book was not his was because of this story in the bible where king Solomon….and he then smiled and intercepted the story and recited the entire thing. I was amazed at this 10 year old kid’s ability to relate a story he heard in church that most kids probably would forget right after listening to it to real life. I know that this does not confirm that he is going to become the president of the country, but I think it shows genuine intelligence and ability to merge different circumstances together to in a sense solve a problem and rely upon internal resources. While that may be a long shot I also just really wanted to tell you that story because it was the highlight of my week.

South African Ulpan:

Netball - volleyball

I don’t think any sentence is necessary for this one but I feel like it would be so strange to leave those two words in a section all by their lonesome when usually another sentence accompanies them. But I guess this unnecessary tangent accomplishes, at least aesthetically, so I deem this sufficient…

Cheers!

Israel..it was bound to come up sooner or later

So now that Israel is officially on her way to becoming a senior citizen and getting movie ticket discounts and all of that fun stuff as of last week, I guess its time I start actually putting into words how being in South Africa has impacted my beliefs and feelings regarding the Holy Land. It is something I have subconsciously avoided because it is just one more thing that will most likely leave me frustrated, confused and torn. But I realize that it is a conversation of great importance because it ties so many things together and is one of the challenges that can reveal how much I have learned since being here.

Israel is a physical and spiritual location with a variety of dimensions of value that allows it to mean something different to all who care for her. For many, Israel is religiously important, for others its significance lies in its culture, history, spirituality or something else. Reflecting on the miracles that have occurred in order for Israel to have been established and sustained, I truly believe it exists in a dimension closer to heaven.

I have always viewed Israel as a central nucleus that links us to all those who live as Jews in the world, to all those who once lived as Jews, and to the Jews that have yet to be born. Its language is known in some capacity by people from all corners of the world, its flag is adorned with a symbol that penetrates not just the eye, but the soul, its anthem is a song that refers to millennia of history not just a few hundred years. For many it is a home one can feel welcomed by and safe within without even being physically present. I do not think there is any other place in the world that fits these criteria.

This is the lens that I think many observant Jews develop, through education, through communities, through discourse, through text. We are told to love Israel, we are told to live in Israel, we are told that Israel is our responsibility and our right, because of the value it holds to the Jewish nation and the divine textual evidence of our claim. We don’t grow up being exposed to the Palestinian population who lives in Israel with limited resources and opportunities. When we are, it seems that often these people are clumped together as a hindrance to the safety and maintenance of our homeland. Sometimes when we sympathize with the “other,” the “enemy,” we can be perceived as disloyal and unpatriotic (I realize that this is not the mentality of a significant percentage of people, but my experience has led me to believe that a large number of people seem to align with this way of thinking). So instead, when talking about Israel, we simply ignore the issue in many cases, because we are Jews, and the Torah grants us the land of Israel, and thus it is ours, no one else’s.

So many experiences in my life, especially my time in South Africa, have proven to me that the experiences of each person, each nation is their own, and that in order to understand how we function in the world, we need to recognize others’ entitlement to their own experiences. In Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s book Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America, she discusses her experiences as part of various dialogue groups involving Arab, Palestinian, Jewish and Israeli women. I remember one part of this book that resonated strongly in my mind was when she expresses the difficulty and stagnancy of these conversations. She conveys a great deal of frustration because no one will ever be able to convince the other side of their story, of their narrative, of their claim. There is no one truth. The truth of the Jewish people is at odds with the truth of the Palestinian people. Each group feels entitled to the land. Often, Jews understandably prioritize their claim above that of other people deeming it false. I have heard time and time again, well in the Torah it says…., and God promised us… How can we expect this vocabulary, this mentality to be understood by people who do not believe in the divinity of the Torah and the God portrayed within it? This is not just in reference to Palestinians, but anyone who does not align with this way of thinking. I do not believe that any one group has a monopoly on the truth, what I believe is not and does not have to be what someone else believes. We cannot expect people to give up their truth, in fact it is no one’s place to do so. Palestinians live in Israel, I personally do not think that we can ignore this reality; we cannot blindly discuss the wonders of Israel, the value we place on it as individuals and as a collective people without acknowledging that a population exists in the land of Israel with little access to necessary resources and positive national identity. While it seems as though being pro-Palestinian is often equated with anti-Israel and vice versa, I think that it is completely possible to love Israel and open our eyes to the circumstances of the Palestinians at the same time.

Much of this thought process has been impacted by South African perception of Israel as a moral pariah, as an oppressor, as the Apartheid regime that subjugated and dehumanized the majority of the population for so long. In the historical records of many of the southern African countries, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians is often held up as the historical reference to explain the racist imperialists and the indigenous, downtrodden natives. In my mind, they have legitimate reason to. In the era when the international community put countless sanctions and pressure to disband Apartheid on the nationalist government, Israel financially supported SA. Perhaps there are reasons for doing so related to the desperate state of the Israeli economy, but in the eyes of black and coloured South Africans, they were indirectly contributing to their oppression. This may be why the word Apartheid has been used in describing the Israeli governmental actions regarding Palestinians. While I believe it is clear that this comparison is completely inappropriate, while I believe that the Israeli government has not institutionalized racism like the Nationalist government, but has taken certain necessary steps to defend itself, when it is possible to see the plight of a people through the eyes of personal horrible experience, the link is, not justifiable, but understandable.

It is a very difficult situation. But it is ok in my mind to acknowledge the suffering of others without betraying that which you feel loyal to. While I feel as though I have recognized the second-class conditions of Palestinians in the past, I think being here has added new dimensions to that recognition. Its easy to say that people are living in awful conditions and I feel bad for them, but when you see it, when you feel it around you, when 9 year old girls in townships meet you and their first question is if you have any kids, when one student gets picked on because his skin is a pigment darker than the others, when you are in a little vacation town where the only black people present are cleaning your dishes and serving your food, when you meet white teenagers applying to university and are bitter because they think all the black kids are going to steal their spots because of affirmative action (black economic empowerment is what its called here), when you see the townships on the side of the road that are a few square miles and house 500,000 people who live in shacks made out of cardboard and tin, all of your sense are awakened to the suffering of others, you become overcome by a helplessness that seems unfathomable, unfixable. To me, it is not possible to look at Israel as the home of the Jews without recognizing her responsibility to treat all those who live within the country well and respectfully. Being Jewish demands that of us. Yes, protective measures are incredibly necessary and there is a huge percentage of Palestinians, Arabs and others who do not recognize Israel’s right to exist and pose a huge threat to her future, but in my mind these obstacles only strengthen the need for Israel to extend its hand, its resources, its recognition of humanity to all to establish its identity as a moral light unto other nations.

Similarly, in a book I am currently reading by Alister Sparks called Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa (having put my interest in fiction aside for the sake of taking advantage of the non-fiction literature available to me here that will never be at my disposal again), the author discusses the unique position that South Africa has found itself in the world, and the potential it has to be a model for other nations and grand-scale interactions. It is a meeting point of the first and the third world, the rich and the poor, the light and the dark. Yet its uniqueness lies in the reality that, unlike most countries that possess this same dynamic, members of the third world are the ones who currently sit in power since the democratic transition 14 years ago. As a result, a new form of communication is taking place, a process of creating a new social order that accommodates both the capitalist and the traditionalist, the Afrikaner and the Zulu.

The hierarchy of the world has naturally placed development and capitalism at the top and tradition and rural living at the bottom. Every battle seems to be observed through the polarized lens of West and East, democracy and communism, good and evil. Drawing on other regions of unrest, Sparks discusses the dynamic of America’s war on terrorism and the hate that produced it. The vocabulary of evil, enemy and fundamentalism became so easy to rely upon. The civilized nations believed it their moral duty to destroy the medieval, religious terrorists without ever understanding the point of tension, the source of hatred. Without condoning any acts of terror or destruction, it seems that the Westernized way of thinking never swallows its pride to acknowledge the value of any other way of living and instead waves wealth and “democracy” in its face and demands its opponents to change their way of life. If they don’t that is in fact the very reason why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We never take the time to look inwardly, to see that perhaps our own tactics are at fault, or have made contributions to the problem. We never try to create forums of understanding between different worlds, we simply use higher status as rationale for invading, for missionizing, for murdering and for destroying.

In South Africa, Israel is the illegitimate result of an imperialist, British mandate, a result of the same process and way of thinking that granted sovereignty to the Afrikaner Nationalist party of South Africa, coincidentally in the same year, 1948. Thus it becomes clear which side of good and evil upon which Israel falls in the eyes of the oppressed. It also becomes easy to understand why people must always deem support of the Israelis and Palestinians as mutually exclusive. I do acknowledge that recognizing both plights is extremely difficult, especially when the survival of such an important place and nation is at stake, but I personally see so much potential in embracing the spectrum in between the evil and the good, the first and the third world (vocabulary which I am not sure is politically correct, but know that my intentions are politically correct). I don’t think that this mentality is a form of politics, but rather a responsibility as a human, as a Jew, to entitle each person to their own experience. It seems to me, that while they possess very different circumstances and realities, South Africa and Israel, both have an unprecedented opportunity to introduce a new form of communication, a new form of social order.

South African (Cultural) Ulpan:

Pudding – dessert course, such as cakes, mousses, fruit salads and even puddings. MMMM.

“Hey kids, its time for pudding,” said mom as they all jumped for joy and screamed “yippee.”

Cheers!