Yay Bread!!

While I surprisingly did not get completely tired of matza I have to say I am quite excited to start eating a little more than tuna, tomatoes and our bread of affliction. The remaining days of my pesach celebration were spent at the house of a friend's family in Rondebosch which is a really nice suburb close to where I live. We successfully spent the weekend continuing to discuss the relevant topics that one is supposed to speak about during this time. The constant connections made between the exodus from Egypt and liberation struggle of apartheid South Africa and its remnants have really forced me to forge links between two completely different histories and people. I believe that the dimensions added onto this holiday have helped me understand how to merge my Judaism with how the history of South Africa can be relevant to my life. I think that understanding the suffering and oppression of one people or situation within the context of a different one that includes these two things can humanize and shed light upon each. Both stories create a larger framework for comprehending what we all deserve as humans regardless of our titles and loyalties, because that is our ultimate distinction; being human connects us all to one another and establishes a mutual responsibility for each other.

Ultimately, I think that the slavery of and exodus from Egypt are not vague memories that we must acclimate ourselves with every year, but rather a reality that continues to present itself in various regions. We only have to open our eyes to the unfathomable horrors and simultaneous glimmers of hope that continue to emerge manifest in the contemporary histories of others; for example the continued recalcitrance of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe that has undermined a supposed democratic process that voted him and his oppressive, corrupt ZANU-PF government out of office. It is quite clear to me that he continues to in effect mimic the egoism and cruelty of Pharoh through his contemporary translation of “no I will not yet your people go.” Exodus is not only a keystone of the past but a necessary emergence in our future. By our, I mean that we cannot distance ourselves from the suffering of others, because continued oppression lurks everywhere and deems everyone vulnerable, and thus we are not free until all members of humanity are.

I think that the reason why these various oppressions are able to take form and produce such uneven hierarchies is rooted in an idea that I learned in my awesome archeology class last week. When Iron Age societies in sub-Saharan Africa were infiltrated by new peoples there was a pattern of dynamics that would follow this new reality, this new interaction between those who inhabited the land, the first-comers, and those who settled in the same areas later and integrated into the cultures of these first-comers; these groups were referred to as the new-comers. The new-comers would initially hold fast to their own beliefs and practices while simultaneously submitting to the governance and spiritual connections of the first-comers in their own territory. But as time would elapse, the new-comers would introduce their ways into the cultures that were present before they lived in the area. Soon they would begin to influence the first-comers and convince them that their technologies, norms and practices were superior, were more civilized. The new-comers would begin to take over the power structures of the cultures by claiming their superiority and their civilized contributions to the people and the land. They would no longer allow the way of life of the first-comers to hold any value among the merged populations and started to see themselves as the true inhabitants of the land. Soon the culture of the first-comers would dissipate and the remnants of it, whether existing in tradition or people, would move down the cultural ladder. Then a new people would move into the land recreating the process and deeming themselves the new-comers and the initial new-comers the first comers. This progression seems to me to be the original imperialism that has become more complex and multifaceted and continues to plague the world on a grander scale, for it has and will remain a justification for oppression and the establishment of hierarchies of belief and practice. It seems the vertical nature of social relations has been in existence for quite some time and that the need for a paradigm shift to horizontal relationships has been just as necessary in the past as it is today.

Since being here, I have been so blessed to have exposure to different topics in my classes and different ways of thinking that have all allowed me to fuse different worlds together and learn about them individually and also as a collective reality. Through archeology, the history of Southern Africa, the existence of global poverty and development, volunteer opportunities and exposure to the Jewish community, I feel as though I have activated a new passion for understanding the world around me through facts and hands-on experience and not just observing from a distance, which is a reference to the sociological lens I so often employed prior to this new life. If you have not noticed, one of the main outlets that have facilitate this process has been reading, specifically finding refuge in works of non-fiction. I find that reading is an amazing way to bring words and ideas to life within the physical world around me. As a result, I have often found that my taste in books is limited and does not include fiction, and I have often voiced this preference. Well, this past yom tov, this unwarranted hierarchy within my own life was broken down. The friend whose family I stayed with opened up a new world to me in the form of books about things that have never happened but are still profoundly relevant to reality.

My introduction to fiction came in the form of Ernest Hemmingway’s short classic The old Man and the Sea. The book was quite easy to read and seemed to have quite a simple plot. Old fisherman seeks to legitimize his life by catching the fish he had always hoped for. Yet the complex, but effortless naturalness of the old man’s thoughts mixed in with the development of the love-hate relationship with his prized fish during his journey adds new meaning and uniqueness to such a bare narrative. As my friend explained to me, the magic of fiction lies in its ability to elevate such simplicity, to take normal events, characters and circumstances as a collective entity and transform them into something greater than what it is, something extraordinary. Yet it is not unrealistic to think that the wonders of the completeness of the story are present in the simple parts of our own lives; it is not unrealistic to think that the hard-to-decipher, bittersweet ending would come about from such a routine fishing trip (or whatever that may be representative of in our own experiences). Life is complicated, the relevance and significance we attach to the situations that construct our identities are real and literature that never happened can help us filter them out and help us place the purpose of our various experiences in the larger framework of our lives. I feel as though my experience in South Africa is true proof of this.

Stories like this can teach us so much about humanity and situations that can be metaphors for those we experience in our own lives. This was insightfully articulated by my friend's little sister as she announced a quote from a different work of fiction, “history is a lived novel while a novel is history not yet lived” (or something like that). I think that fiction can be as helpful and relevant as non-fiction because it teaches us about the realities of the human state and how we function in normal as well as abnormal situations. It pulls significance and worth out of places in which one would never think to look for these things. I am quite excited to continue to develop my relationship with fiction and find new ways to relate it to the realities of the word. Next up: Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. Don’t worry though, I still plan on reading plenty of ‘lived novels;’ I just want to mix things up a bit.

Just to once again reassure you that I do not sit locked up in my room reading and doing homework, I continue to travel around Cape Town and build relationships, it just seems to me that the adventures of my mind are easier to articulate in a way that might be interesting because, in my mind, they fuse all of the individual experiences i had had into something greater, something that i hope will continue to impact my life far beyond leaving Cape Town in mid-June.

South African (cultural) Ulpan:

Biltong – noun – a dry jerky that can be made from a variety of animal meats (beef, buffalo, springbok, antelope etc.) loved by citizens of south African culture

When Josiah became a vegetarian, it was quite difficult for him to give up his beloved biltong..I don't know how necessary that sentence was but I really wanted to use the name Josaih.

Enjoy your leavened products. Cheers!

Who knows one?

Chag Sameach everyone! I hope that the first few days of the best holiday ever were meaningful and tasty for all. Though I missed my family seders dearly and often wondered how they were going (though the time difference made this a little tricky), I definitely would use those two words to describe my Pesach experience thus far. I spent a fantastic Shabbat and first days of yom tov at a friend’s family’s house in the Cape Town suburb of Constantia. The area was much more calming and quiet than most of the places I have seen within the city limits which was very conducive to immersing myself in food, song, great company and conversation, plenty of data to add to my sociological study of the Cape Town Jewish community and an internal struggle with the concept of freedom.

Because the crux of Pesach is the telling and remembering of the story of the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, I constantly found myself connecting how this history fits into my individual as well as collective identity as a Jew to the countless layers of oppression, liberation and continued inequality in South Africa (while I know that the two are not quantitatively comparable, I am not trying to equate a Jewish memory with the contemporary suffering that occurred and still remains in South Africa, but I do think that linking these two experiences sheds a great deal of light upon what freedom is and how essential it is to the well being of both the individual and the community). Touching on my last post I believe that the ideals preached in Black Theology are completely relevant in grasping the significance of national liberation and how that contributes to this indescribably important process of value and identity formation. Yetziat Mitzrayim was the starting point of the development of the Jewish nation. It was not until we were freed from the shackles of Egyptian slavery that we were fully able to begin the process of discovering what it meant to be Jewish, to determine our own selves and understand how that connected us to those who classified themselves in the same category. When one is enslaved, they are unable to direct the course of their own life, they are unable to make decisions of what they value and in turn how to transform that value into action, into a positive contribution to the world and people around them. Being slaves in Egypt denied the Jewish people this process, for they were slaves to a system that forced them to remain at the bottom of society and refused them the capacity to rise above their circumstances.

Freedom is often seen as lack of constraints, lack of rules and restrictions – chofesh (reference to last post). But it seems as though, when analyzing systems of oppression, that freedom offers something more than destroying restriction, it offers the opportunity to discover a true self that was suppressed for so long because one’s routine and simple needs were defined by the oppressor. When one is hungry and tired from hours, weeks, years of demanding, manual labor and dehumanization, it is difficult to consider intangible concepts of faith and loyalty; one focuses on what they need to physically get them through the day. This oppression creates a constant tie to the physical and a constant obstruction to the consideration of what exists beyond the physical. Freedom is thus the channel that provides the oppressed with the ability to begin the process of entering that new realm.

The freedom discussed in the story of the exodus from Egypt (referred to in the Hagaddah as cherut) provided the Jewish people with the ability to realize their potential as humans and to start developing a significant, national identity; one of uniqueness, one loyalty to a new leader who actually had the best interests of the Jewish people in mind, one of pride and one of trying to rise above the experienced evils of the world. This was not a freedom from rules, instead it was a commitment to a completely new set of rules, to a new life of uncertainly and instability that did not provide this budding people with an identifiable homeland for four decades. Freedom was not easy, rather it was a trying struggle of pain, of mistakes, of new constraints, but it provided the Jewish people with the circumstances and capacity to develop into a nation expected to be better than others, expected to understand the human plight and the negative ramifications of an oppressive hierarchy.

The conversations and conglomeration of comments made that surrounded this topic confirmed for me the colossal significance of liberation in defining a people as well as the relationship between that people and the god, the force that produced it. I started to think that each facet of my relationship with God was some sort of freedom, a collection of mini-liberations that do not make life easier, but rather push me to reach my potential and be the best version of myself. The Jewish people are the people of God because of this process and that is why Pesach is celebrated and commemorated, that is why this story is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle that makes up the Jewish nation.

Interestingly as I thought about how this liberation impacted my own vicarious liberation experience I started to think about how perhaps, in reality, Black Theology could be used to describe the Pesach story more accurately than it could be in its actual context, the liberation struggle of South Africa. While Black Theology was such an important ideology in empowering members of the Black Consciousness Movement to sincerely take pride in their black identity and in the righteousness of their struggle, I think that liberation was a man-made struggle and success that included a human strength missing from the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt. Apartheid oppression belittled the humanity of those without white skin, yet the presence of this spiritual ideology, along with many other strong positive forces of influence within the liberation movement, provided the oppressed with a sense of hope, a sense of identity and a sense of power, three things that the Nationalist government tried so hard to take away. The oppressed South Africans created their own freedom through developing solidarity and meaning, while the shackles of the Jewish people are said to have been loosened by a distant force separate from them. While one could title Moshe a freedom fighter (again, I am not equating the two stories simply linking their narratives of freedom), it seems as though his status as such was only a product of God pushing him to take on the role.

When learning about the character of Moshe, I have often been told that his humility, his reluctance to accept such a significant leadership role was one of his greatest attributes. After drawing comparisons to the liberation struggle of South Africa, it seems to me that true freedom is very much dependent upon a person’s self confidence in their abilities and their actions that in my opinion does reflect a level of unmatched selflessness and commitment to a community in need. All of the freedom fighters I have learned about exuded this quality and I feel as though it is a necessity lacking from the exodus from Egypt. I suppose God’s role in the latter is much more obvious and active, but it almost makes it seem as though human beings cannot empower themselves to bring about their own freedom.

If freedom, cherut, is being provided with the capacity to realize your potential it would seem conducive to that process if individuals had an active role in their liberation and started to build up that strength, that identity through the process of destroying the oppressor. While I continue to acknowledge the apples-and-oranges character of this comparison, I find myself disappointed in the lack of human action in the story of yetziat mitzrayim. We constantly talk about being the lowest of the low and not understanding our own power in relationship to slavery, but the conditions of Apartheid South Africa seem to provide a very similar reality, yet remarkable leaders emerged to spawn their own liberation.

I still strongly believe in the great significance of liberation and how that process defines who we are as Jews, but I feel as though if there was an emphasis placed on human action that perhaps it could have led to a more stable national existence. Yes, God is the nucleus, and many believe that our success and identity is inherently intertwined with our faith in God, but it seems to me that the power of the individual, of the community is sacrificed in order to glorify all that God has done for us, all without which we would be lost and unidentifiable. But I think that this action and strength of self can also be woven into our relationship with God. Going back to the idea that we are all made in God’s image, it seems to me that we can pinpoint the strength of the South African freedom fighters, and all those who have bravely fought for their own community’s liberation, and link that strength to all of the wonderful characteristics instilled within us to the idea of emulating God.

I have started to see so many different situations within the context of freedom since…umm…yesterday I guess. In all of my classes this morning I kept thinking about how poverty as a simultaneous inherent attribute and byproduct of a capitalistic social structure, the patriarchal belittlement (I did not know this was a word until I just typed it, that’s so exciting!) of women in the varnasramadharma framework of traditional Hinduism, the heated archaeological debates surrounding the development or lack their of of hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari desert, the amazing stories of freedom fighter resistance on Robben Island all directly relate to freedom and the restrictions placed on one’s identity when they are deprived of it. Freedom and lack of freedom are what define our circumstances. When we are free to determine our own experiences and faiths, when we are free from worrying about providing the bare necessities for our families, we possess the capacity to understand who we are and what we want to be. We even have the capacity to get from the former to the latter. We must be aware of the countless manifestations of freedom and more importantly the circumstances that beg for it. As a Jew, I feel more compelled to make up for the human action lacking in the story we continue to relive for the next few days and take it upon myself to truly understand what it means to treat others well, for we were once “others” in Egypt, for we were once unable to define our freedom and ourselves in general. To me, that idea seems so relevant to so many other aspects of our being. If we translate this history into our situations and relationships we are acknowledging the countless troubles of the world and at the same time continuing to understand our own identities in a way that will allow us to confront them more constructively and sensitively.

Wow that unnecessary pretentious preaching seems to be creeping in again….

South African Ulpan:

Robot – noun – traffic light

When the robot turned red Prunella stopped the car.

Enjoy your wonderful pesadic treats while I eat matza and tuna for the rest of the chag! Cheers!

A few new religious ideas to consider..

Greetings from the Southern hemisphere! Today, the all stars of Liberation in Southern Africa made an appearance in the form of Peter Jones, a prominent leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1970's. Once again, I was truly awed by the amount of pride and dignity that he conveyed. Listening to all of these leaders of the liberation struggle has really proven to me the power of ideas, the power of action and the power of a desire to do what is right and just for all, especially those who do not recognize the power of their own voices. He discussed the formation and the actions of the BCM and his own experience and through it all conveyed an appreciation of his minority identity that must have been so difficult to uphold in the face of such blatant and cruel dehumanization. That, in my mind, was the most amazing thing about Black Consciousness, it was centered around the self and how the individual has the power to free themselves from the shackles of white oppression that continue to deem them not good enough. It was an ideology that gave power to those deemed powerless. While all facets and efforts of the liberation struggle were necessary and unfathomably brave, I think that the reconstruction of a positive self image in the face of severe degradation was one of the most important feats in the era of Apartheid.

Insensitively moving on to the privileges of my life and opportunities in South Africa... Shabbat was quite fun and interesting. A friend and I stayed at the house of a young couple hosting a Shabbaton for 13 sixth grade girls. Again, I was amazed at the amount of effort and creativity constantly present within the Cape Town Jewish community in attempts to cultivate a sense of Jewish pride and knowledge. I do not know how many of these kids have weekly Shabbat experiences at home, but they seemed to really enjoy the Shabbaton. Expressing my Judaism and taking pride in that identity and has always been so easy for me and I think I am starting to realize how for most Jews, it is difficult to want to be Jewish when it leads to losing, to sacrificing something else. It is so much easier to take pride in your existence as a Jew when you are provided with opportunities that make you want to be Jewish and express whatever that means to you. I thankfully never had to say “oh I had to do X when everyone else got to do Y.” For most kids, if this is reality, it is going to be hard to find the value in X over Y. But when settings and programs are established where X becomes the Y, where being Jewish gives you access to places and people you didn’t have before as well as the value and wonder of what it is to be Jewish and have that characteristic connect you to other amazing people, then this can produce a significant gain rather than a frustrating sacrifice. All of the amazing people, programs and organizations in the Cape Town community really seem to be trying to make the X into the Y and show that appreciating your Judaism can be because of how much you benefit from it and not despite what you are missing.

On the subject of appreciating religion, I don’t know how many of you have ever learned about Buddhism, but it is the focus of my Religion, Sexuality and Gender class last week and this week and it happens to be extremely interesting. I think the reason I have become so intrigued by it is because all of the religions I have learned about and been exposed to until now all fit within the same Western, monotheistic framework. Even though Judaism (which is my reference point if you have not yet realized) is quite different from Christianity and Islam, they are centrally focused on the idea of one God, a biblical text and the process of authoritative interpretation that succeeded it, messianic afterlife, rituals, historical prophets etc etc. But Buddhism does not possess any of these things. It is more a state of being that a religion in the way we understand it. We all exist within a ring of samsara which is suffering. This does not necessarily refer to physical pain but rather meaninglessness and emptiness which at times can take on a physical form. The reality we live in has produced a dichotomy between happiness and sadness but all of the constructions of the world reside in the ring of samsara. Things cannot make us happy or determine our success, rather we must identify and destroy the three poisons of the world upon whose axis the wheel of suffering stands upon, greed (desire), ignorance and hatred with wisdom and compassion. The ideal then becomes living an ascetic existence in the mountains or the forest and ridding yourself of desire for physicality outside of the self. By focusing on the attainment of the two things that have the power to reverse the wheel of samsara and arrive at enlightenment, nirvana, one must employ wisdom and compassion which can be attained through the teachings of the Buddha who is the father figure of Buddhism but not a god. Gods in Buddhism exist but they are not transcendent, eternal or superior to humans, instead it is best to be human for then you have the capacity to search for salvation. All of the other forms of existence do not possess the same drive for salvation and thus humanity is the summit of being. When the cycle of reincarnation happens over and over, being born a human is perceived as a reward for righteousness in the previous life. (I may be mixing some of these concepts up so do not take this as an actual explanation of some of the primary Buddhist ideas)

The idea of reincarnation in Buddhism is extremely interesting because it is the foundation of wisdom and compassion, the two tools of salvation. Because each person is perceived to have lived countless previous lives, it is believed in Buddhism that each being was once the brother, father, sister, mother, dog of every other person and as a result we are all interconnected. There is no focus on the individual but rather the fullness of the world. While I do not necessarily believe in reincarnation I think that this idea has really infiltrated my thought process. I think it is quite similar to the belief of b’tzelem elokim, that we are all created in God’s image. While I am aware Buddhism does not introduce a god like the God of Judaism, I think that the larger force of each belief system and way of life can be used as a means to see ourselves in others and to feel responsible for their well being as a result.

Another belief system that I have recently been introduced to that I find so interesting and have tried to connect to different Jewish ideas is black theology; an ideology created in the time of the civil rights movement to empower black people within a Christian context adopted by many of the leaders of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement. The basis of black theology was that whites monopolized Christianity and created a religion that could not be followed by people who were being oppressed in its name. Instead, one of the fathers of black theology, James Cone, wrote that god is a force that can only be associated with the oppressed since revelation of god can only take place in liberation. He said that it is not possible for persecution to be religiously justified, but rather that god has always been associated with those who are fighting persecution. As a result, the Christian god must therefore be a black god, for god cannot be associated with the oppressor, but rather he or she who is being oppressed.

Simultaneously though, in black theology the human being can only be free if they are one of the oppressed. Only then is there mind at odds with the norms of a tyrannical society and understands that the world can and needs to be better. For those who have the luxuries of support from this system, they are incapable of understanding what is wrong with the world and thus remain imprisoned in their minds. This idea reminded me a great deal, going way way back, to the discussion of the two kinds of freedom in Judaism, chofesh - a freedom from restriction, and cherut - a freedom of consciousness, a freedom to understand the world and elevate the mundane through laws and beliefs that facilitate this process. Black theology seems to present a version of cherut, a freedom that is not easy to attain or in many cases is not actually desired but it leads to a greater understanding of the self, how one relates to others and why such interactions are so valuable.

I found these ideas to be extremely reflective of Judaism especially as we approach Pesach. I keep hearing d’var torahs about how this is the most important, most observed holiday because that which we are commemorating, ye’ztiat mitsraim (our freedom from Egypt), is one of the defining events in the history for the Jewish people. So often in prayers and in the Torah, this event is referred to in describing God (God who took you out of Egypt). This is what led to receiving the Torah and to receiving our own land, this liberation from slavery and oppression is what produced the development of Jewish life, belief and culture. Today, it can also be seen, according to my favorite Rabbi of my favorite shul in Cape Town (in his Friday night sermon), as an opportunity to not only clean ours houses of chametz, but rid ourselves of the “filth” within us, the situations in which we have not treated others well, the times when we have spoken badly about another; it is a time to free ourselves of all that restricts us from being the best versions of ourselves. Pesach is our freedom as a people as well as a blueprint that teaches us how to function within that freedom as an individual. The source of our communal liberation and our individual understanding of how to be certain that all those around us never feel as though our actions and words put shackles upon others in our lives is God. This God could never be one that supports hatred and human hierarchy, one that is used to justify persecution. I believe that the God who took the Jews out of Egypt is the same as the God who frees other groups of their oppression. I agree with James Cone that when that process occurs, then God is revered, believed in, loved and feared; freedom is the defining moment in the relationship between a God and those who follow that God.

I really think that we can learn so much from learning about other religions, belief systems and cultures. For me, doing so has often complemented my Judaism rather than opposing it. While at times different ideas have made me question various Jewish tenets, I believe that engaging in these debates in my mind have made my faith and understanding stronger.

South African Ulpan, you get two!

widget - noun - widge-et - a remote

soapy (this might not be the correct spelling) - noun - soap-ee - soap opera

Sally and Jirard fought over the widget as Sally watched the rugby match and Jirard desperately wanted to regain power and watch his favorite soapy.

Happy Pesach cleaning! Cheers!

What would you have done?

Hi again! Ok so new development in my life...I have abruptly decided to run for hillel elections at Brandeis for the coming year. The idea was presented to me quite last minute but I am really happy with this decision. I am running for the campus relations coordinator. The person who fills this role is the liaison between hillel and other campus groups which is quite a vague description and as a result the person can really make the position into what they want and in a sense define their own goals. If I am elected, I think it would be a great opportunity to put into practice so much of what I have learned over the past few years both at Brandeis and abroad. Plus I need some non-Jewish friends at Brandeis and as much as I have tried to find some, it has taken me until going to South Africa to actually speak and have relationships with “members of different tribes.” I really am excited at the prospect of having an official opportunity to connect with different clubs, members of the administration, religious groups within the context of the hillel community because it can truly demonstrate the value that lies in these kinds of diverse interactions and how much we can learn about our own beliefs through learning about those belonging to others. Elections are on Sunday, so we will see…oh and for those five of you who read this who go to Brandeis and can vote, I’ll give you candy if you vote for me.

Moving on…So after finishing Desmond Tutu's book “No Future Without Forgiveness” about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which I have discussed in previous blog posts, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of forgiveness. While the book was extremely inspiring and the idea of forgiveness amidst the horrors of apartheid through revealing narratives that connote accepted responsibility on the part of the perpetrator and returned dignity in the case of the victims, I do not know if I personally think that forgiveness is deserved or warranted. Yes, I understood throughout the book Tutu pinpoints the apartheid system as the true criminal, and that is what was put on trial by the Commission through the stories of those involved, but how can people be legally absolved of their crimes committed against those not alive to grant the absolution?

I recently also read a different book that Tutu mentioned within his own writing by Simon Weisenthal called "The Sunflower," that seems to confront this question head on through the lens of the Holocaust. The book is split up into two sections. The first is a semi-autobiographical account of a Jewish prisoner who finds himself at the bedside of a dying SS officer. The officer has hours left to live and feels tortured by the guilt of his terrible crimes as a member of the Nazi regime. He calls upon a random Jew to disclose his up until then unspeakable acts of murder to and proceeds to ask the tortured, dehumanized prisoner still in the midst of the hell of persecution and execution of the Holocaust if he would forgive the officer for his crimes on behalf of those whom he murdered. After hearing the officer pour out his soul, the author walks out of the hospital room in silence, never responding to the dying man's plea.

Weisenthal than poses the question to various prominent world figures "what would you have done?" The second part of the book is an anthology of responses that these people sent back to Weisenthal. It was extremely interesting to read such a diverse group of understandings of what forgiveness is and how it should and should not be utilized. Most of the responses raise the issue of not being able to grant forgiveness for crimes not committed against you. This is an idea that spoke loudly to me and as a result made me question the aims of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If you are faced with the heart-wrenching decision to grant or not to grant forgiveness to someone who committed an awful act directly against you, I would imagine the situation to be extremely difficult because in your heart the pain and destruction it caused will continue to impact your life in negative ways, some which you will never even be able to link back to the source. So how is forgiveness tenable? How is it possible to tell the person who caused so much horror that while they will always be held responsible for it, that they can now distance themselves from the guilt of acknowledging that he or she caused terrors that will never leave the victim? It seems to produce a permanent punishment for the victim but only a temporary one for the perpetrator…where is the justice in that? Where is the restored humanity for the victim when it is on their shoulders to offer that to the person who dehumanized them or others who suffered similar, terrifying conditions?

In reading so many wonderful accounts I came to two conclusions, one of which is borrowed. One of the responses discussed that the word forgiveness is used too loosely in this context. To completely forgive someone for torture, pain and the countless ripple effects of suffering is not feasible. There is no way that the author of "The Sunflower" could have ever been cleansed of the indelible effects of such horror. The title of the book comes from the author's experience of walking through a Nazi military cemetery and seeing that each officer's grave was adorned with a sunflower, a symbol of respect and honor, a symbol that his death was acknowledged and mourned. Weisenthal writes in anguish about the millions of murdered men, women and children whose bodies and minds were mutilated and murdered without concern or remorse and whose corpses were than carelessly piled atop each other to rot and be forgotten. These countless souls will never be acknowledged, they will never be individually mourned, and they will never have a sunflower rest atop their beaten, forgotten bodies. The psychological ramifications of such terrible circumstances are endless, thus forgiveness, absolution is not a legitimate option. Instead the response says that what the author could have offered to this officer was an understanding that he personally felt a great deal of regret and never wanted to be a killer but was forced to become one because of the corrupt, appalling system of which he was a part. I really appreciated this distinction because up until then it seemed as though their were only two options, to forgive the man which implies a sense of complete absolution, or walk away in silence without putting the dying officer’s mind at ease. But this alternative, acknowledging the negative ramifications that the officer’s actions had on himself suggests a middle ground of some sort, a balance of shared humanity and accepted responsibility. If this action had been taken, perhaps the author could have given the dying man hope that he could have been a better person if not for the circumstances.

The second conclusion that I came too (and this is a fusion of some ideas mentioned in some of the responses mixed with my own response) is that forgiveness gives too much power (and in my mind, not the good kind) to the forgiver. Did this officer think that by telling someone who was not even his victim but simply a person who shared the same hated identity as his victims that he could be absolved? Did he think that this one man could speak on behalf of each person persecuted, executed or dehumanized? The author does not fully know what the intent of the officer was in asking him for forgiveness, but it is clear that being granted such by a random Jew still in the midst of the horror to which he contributed would some how offer him a little comfort before he would meet his death. But I think that forgiveness is more an internal experience than it is an external one, it must take place within before it can take place in the outside world. If this officer was in such desperate need of absolution from a random Jewish man who he unintentionally and carelessly tormented for the rest of his life due to his continued doubts regarding his decision, to me it seemed clear that even if forgiveness had been granted, it would not have helped, for this dying officer did not forgive himself.

I have learned (I forget what the source of this is) that true repentance of a sin can only occur when a person finds him or herself in the exact same situation in which the sin took place and decides to not commit the same mistake. In Hebrew the root of the word for repentance means to return and to me it seems that this is the reason (I also think I learned that somewhere). This man was on his deathbed tormented by thoughts of what would meet him upon his exit from the material world. Would he have felt the same guilt and agony had he not been in that same situation, had he been well enough to continue his job as a member of the Nazi regime? This story points out what I see as a kept difference between the concept of forgiveness and the concept of repentance. Forgiveness is rather passive on the part of he or she who wishes to be forgiven while repentance is forgiveness in its most active form, especially when employing this interpretation of it. It seems that while absolution will never be an option because the crime can never be undone, self-improvement is quantifiable through actively not committing the same transgression twice. On the other side of all of this I think that the above-mentioned idea of understanding can than be active forgiveness on the part of the victim, for they are acknowledging the capacity for improvement that their perpetrator may possess. If you have any thoughts or responses to this topic I would love to hear them!

Wow, reading this post, you would not even know I was in South Africa. Well I promise I am still here, I guess its just that recently my adventures have been more mental than physical. But life here I assure you continues to challenge, amaze and inspire me.

South African Ulpan

Is it? – phrase – pronounced is it? – really?!!

Delilah asked Carlton “Are you a democrat or republican?” Carlton responded “ “republican” to which Delilah replied “is it? But you are a vegetarian.”

I hope my example sentence did not offend anyone...Cheers!

Women and Judaism...you knew it was coming

Hello friends! So I have voluntarily decided to enter the required abroad funk. Don’t be worried, this is a decision I have come to on my own. You see, as is proven by the chart handed to all adventurers at Brandeis’s pre-abroad orientation that maps the emotions of those within this category during their semester abroad, after, euphoria, panic, initial adjustment into your new culture, situation and population, a lull occurs in which each adventurer becomes bored of the not-so-new culture, situation and population and crave novelty once more, the novelty that welcomed them in the beginning of the experience. The chart sadly did not say how long this period would last, but that soon, you adjust once more and appreciate the new life you are living as just that without having the expectations appropriate for say, a tourist. Well I have taken the liberty to decide that this lull will last one and half weeks, from this past Monday until next Friday. Now is perfect timing to accept this lull in stride for a few reasons. First, last week’s safari was a wonderful experience that left me craving more animals and more traveling instead of returning to classes (though I love classes). Second, my phone was “stolen” (or lost, one or the other, but I choose to say stolen because then that counts as the one bad thing that is due to occur during my time in South Africa) which has forced me to get a new one and hunt the numbers of my friends down which has made it difficult to fully be in touch with everyone and has subsequently limited my activity opportunities. Third, the school system both in Khayalitcha and Kensington has a 3 week long Easter break and as a result, volunteering will not resume until April 14^th which leaves two afternoons a week with nothing scheduled. On top of that African dance class was canceled this week leaving me with additional free time. Fourth, by next Friday, I will have pesach to look forward to in a week from then which I am very excited for. Fifth, if the lull is inevitable, I want to be the one to define the terms by which it arrives so as to limit the amount of damage it does to my experience. I figure I am halfway through my semester abroad so it is perfect timing because once it passes, I will have so much more time to fully enjoy my circumstances without having to worry. So don’t worry about me, ok? I am in control.

Within my lull, I have spent a great deal of time in the UCT library getting a head start on reading for a paper that is due in two months. For my Liberation in Southern Africa class research paper, I have chosen to compare the religious ideologies of the leaders of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa to those of the leaders on America’s Black Power Movement and discuss how these ideas impacted the tactics used in each movement. So this week I have read Malcolm X’s autobiography and various articles about the BPM in preparation. I am so excited to write this paper I cannot even tell you. I feel like by the time I start writing it I will know so much about the topics. I am also really going to enjoy the opportunity to connect everything that I have been learning about South Africa and subsequently the connection I feel toward it, to America, the country I actually live in, the country whose racial issues and tensions I have never really bothered to analyze but were always right in front of me. I am really happy that this whole experience is offering me so many things that will make my experience when I get back to the states better and more meaningful.

Anyway I have a funny story to share. The first is that this week we have been learning in my Liberation in Southern Africa class about Angola’s liberation struggle because it is very much related to that of Namibia (which is in Southern Africa and Angola is not). Now I know you might be thinking, Rachie, you are so insensitive, liberation struggles are no laughing matter but rather complex realities experienced by many who suffered a great deal of hardship and revealed the worst qualities of mankind. Yes I know that and respect it, but just wait, there is some humor in this situation. Anyway there were three main freedom fighting groups within Angola, Unita, MPLA and..FMLA. Now for all you ardent feminists, you may know that FMLA is an acronym that stands for feminist majority leadership alliance (Brandeis’s feminist campus group). I was so excited to hear that the feminists were so involved in the liberation struggle. It seemed to have confirmed all the wonderful efforts I knew that women were truly capable of.. Sadly I found out the next day that I had heard wrong and the correct acronym for the group was the FNLA. So I hope you can see the humor in this and not think I am an insensitive, awful person.

Moving on, so last Shabbat I went back to Milnerton, the two house, garage-converted-into -a-shul community (also known as the JLC – Jewish Learning Center), which was wonderful as always. However, on Shabbat day, a women’s shir was held (the population was predominantly middle aged women and me and a few other girls my age). I must admit the whole experience was rather disappointing. The conversation confirmed every stereotype people attach to women especially with a Jewish context. Instead of discussing a text or concrete Jewish issue, the facilitator simply asked us to define freedom in the spirit of Pesach swiftly approaching. While a few interesting answers were given, the conversation very quickly turned into a therapy session in which we discussed marriage, failed marriages, professional troubles and our “emotions.” Uch. As a Jewish woman, I was a little insulted. I, and I would guess most of the women at this shir, am fully capable of discussing pressing Jewish topics. There is no need to go out of your way to create a forum for Jewish women to learn if you are simply going to engage in a conversation that would be quite common outside of that context. I felt like the whole situation simplified and offended the intellect of Jewish women. We, too, are members of a religious system that relies upon discussion and debate in order to continue to understand how the laws, ideas and theologies of Judaism continue to be relevant and necessary to our lives. While I am sure this is not what was intended, I regarded this as an affront to women’s involvement within this process.

While I have not discussed the issue of women in Judaism so much here, I have recently been forced to consider our status through the lens of the Cape Town Jewish community. Because of the limited options of movements, any traditional woman must adhere to an Orthodox system. So in going to Shul (which for many is one of their primary active Jewish experiences), they must sit behind a mechitza and not be active participants in the service. Because this is one of the main ritual experiences a lot of these women have, I have noticed that there are often a lot of women who do not focus so much on praying and as a result there is often a lot of talking. It also seems that women do not have too many opportunities to enrich themselves in Jewish learning or simply do not utilize the resources available to them. Ultimately, I feel as though women internally do not feel as though they matter so much within the community because it seems that intellectually and arguably spiritually they do not have much to offer. I do not know if people actually feel this way and I do see a great deal of social communal involvement that clearly implies that these women value their communities a great deal. However, I have been lucky enough to be part of traditional communities that do allow women to spread their intellectual wings within the confines of halacha. I have also decided to extend these boundaries on my own and take strides that I acknowledge are outside the realm of halacha in order to feel as empowered and spiritually inspired as possible. But regardless of my own decisions, I know that there is a way for women to feel as though they serve a greater purpose than stereotypes permit and I wish that this was available to traditional Jewish women in South Africa.

I experienced yet another “marginalization of women in traditional Judaism” situation in the past two weeks of the Religion, Sexuality and Gender class which were focused on Judaism. The lecturer for this section is a progressive (South Africa’s version of reform) Rabbi who has a congregation in a Cape Town suburb. Throughout his lecture I sensed a subtle disdain for traditional Judaism as a result of its sexist, prejudiced and inconsiderate nature. In my opinion, he did not fully communicate the significance of upholding tradition within Orthodox spheres and at times made it seem like the movement continues to oppress and victimize women who have no voice in the system. I personally have many issues with traditional Judaism in regard to the subjects of sexuality and gender, however I am very aware that there are many people who are completely devoted to this system and understand that each law must be held to in order to comply with what God commanded of them (though I also acknowledge that many people in this system do grapple with these issues while still functioning within a halachic framework). So, as this Rabbi continued to make remarks like “while orthodoxy does this to women, the progressive movement has disregarding it because it is offensive,” I felt as though he was not articulating the value of upholding tradition or acknowledging attempts that are being made to mend certain issues within Orthodoxy within the confines of halacha. He simply made it seem that while progressive Judaism makes progress and is enlightened to the ways of the modern world, traditional Judaism is stuck within a sexist system and refuses to change.

It is almost as if the realities of the women of the traditional Jewish communities are confirming the issues that the progressive movement (or maybe just this one Rabbi) has pinpointed within Orthodoxy. Remember these are all I statements and this also might seem biased since I have had moments where I have felt marginalized by traditional Judaism and have taken necessary steps to stop feeling this way. I really hope I do not sound patronizing, it is just that I know so many amazing women who operate within the halachic system and are so confident and competent within it. So when it seems like the system itself as well as perception of it prevent women from developing this strength, I wonder if the problems that I have with traditional Judaism extend beyond my personal preference. I wonder if the system actually does not do all that it can to empower women (and others) to gain all that they possibly can from the traditional system.

South African Ulpan:

Bru – noun – brew – slang for brother

When Jimmy saw Calvin at the joll, he said “howzit bru?” Calvin responded “great thanks, I just got here, but I was little late because my buckey broke down and I could not go home from the beach to change,” to which Jimmy responded “shame, man, that is why you are wearing your cozzie.”

Wow look at you guys, you just understood a whole paragraph of South African. Gold stars for all of you!