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Israel and the Choice

by Shamrock McShane

The Library

"The man of learning among Jews began to acquire ever greater social prestige. The scholar was held in higher regard than the captains of industry and stars of stage and screen are held today. The hero in Jewish legend became the man who, with intellect, slew the dragons of intellect, instead of the knight who, with sword, slew the monsters of violence. Illiteracy was regarded as something shameful, and the ignorant, whether rich or poor were held in contempt. A learned bastard, the Jewish rabbis held, took precedence over an unlearned scion of a noble family. Pregnant mothers clustered around the yeshivas in hope that their unborn would be imbued with the spirit of scholarship. Potions reputed to contain magical powers were given, not to facilitate the seduction of a reluctant maiden, but to induce a reluctant youth to take up study of the Torah. Thus even superstition was put into the service of education." —' Jews, God, and History

"The library was a huge, three–story, graystone building, with thick Ionic columns, and with the words Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know ­ John Keats engraved in the stone over its four glass entrance doors. It stood on a wide boulevard and there were tall trees in front of it and a grassy lawn bordered by flowers. On the right-hand wall of the vestibule, just inside the door, there was a mural of the history of great ideas, beginning with a drawing of Moses holding the Ten Commandments, going on to Jesus, Mohammed, Galileo, Luther, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and ending with Einstein gazing at the formula E=MC². On the other wall there was a mural showing Homer, Dante, Tolstoy, Blazac, and Shakespeare engaged in conversation. They were beautiful murals, done in bright colors, and the great men in them looked alive. Probably because I had become sensitive about my eyes, I noticed for the first time that Homer's eyes seemed glazed, almost without pupils, as if the artist had been trying to show that he had been blind. I had never noticed that before. And it frightened me a little to see it now." — Chaim Potok

"I believe in Spinoza's God." — Albert Einstein

"Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), a Dutch Jew of Spanish descent, had become discontented with the study of Torah and had joined a philosophical cell of Gentile freethinkers… Henceforth Spinoza belonged to none of the religious communities of Europe. As such he was the prototype of the autonomous, secular outlook that would become current in the West. In the early 20^th century, many people revered Spinoza as the hero of modernity, feeling an affinity with his symbolic exile, alienation, and quest for secular salvation.

"Spinoza was regarded as an atheist, but he did have a belief in a God, even though it was not the God of the Bible. Like the Faylasufs, he saw revealed religion as inferior to the scientific knowledge of God acquired by the philosopher. The nature of religious faith had been misunderstood, he argued in a Theological–Political Treatise. It had become "a mere compound of credulity and prejudice," "a tissue of meaningless mysteries." He looked critically at biblical history. The Israelites had called any phenomenon they could not understand "God." The prophets, for example, were said to have been inspired by God's spirit simply because they were men of exceptional intellect and holiness. But this kind of 'inspiration' was not confined to the elite but was available to everyone through natural reason; the rites and symbols of the faith could only help the masses who were incapable of scientific, rational thought.

"Like Descartes, Spinoza returned to the Ontological Proof for God's existence. The very idea of God contains a validation of God's existence because a perfect being which did not exist would be a contradiction in terms. The existence of God was necessary because it alone provided the certainty and confidence necessary to make other deductions about reality. Our scientific understanding of the world shows us that it is governed by immutable laws. For Spinoza God is simply the principle of law, the sum of the eternal laws in existence. God is a material being, identical with and equivalent to the order which governs the universe. Like Newton, Spinoza returned to the old philosophy of emanation. Because God is inherent and immanent in all things — material and spiritual — it can be defined as the law which governs their existence. It was an absolute denial of transcendence.

"It seems a bleak doctrine, but Spinoza's God inspired him with a truly mystical awe. As the aggregate of all the laws in existence, God was the highest perfection, which welded everything into unity and harmony. When human beings contemplated the workings of their minds in the way that Descartes had enjoined, they opened themselves to the eternal and infinite being of God at work within them. Like Plato, Spinoza believed that intuitive and spontaneous knowledge reveals the presence of God more than a laborious acquisition of facts. Our joy and happiness is equivalent to the love of God, a deity which is not an eternal object of thought but the cause and principle of that thought, deeply one with every single human being. There is no need for revelation or divine law: this God is accessible to the whole of humanity, and the only Torah is the eternal law. Spinoza brought the old metaphysics in line with the new science. His God was not the unknowable One of the Neoplatonists but closer to the absolute Being described by philosophers like Aquinas. But it was also close to the mystical God experienced by orthodox monotheists within themselves. Jew, Christians, and philosophers tended to see Spinoza as an atheist: there was nothing personal about this God, which was inseparable from the rest of reality. Indeed, Spinoza only used the word "God" for historical reasons; he agreed with atheists, who claim that reality cannot be divided into a part which is "God" and a part which is not–God. If God cannot be separated from anything else, it is impossible to say that 'he' exists in any ordinary sense. What Spinoza was saying in effect was that there was no God corresponding to the meaning we usually attach to that word. But mystics and philosophers had been making the same point for centuries. Some had said there was "Nothing" apart from the world we know. Were it not for the absence of the transcendent En Sof, Spinoza's pantheism would resemble Kabbalah and we could sense an affinity between radical mysticism and the newly emergent atheism." — Karen Armstrong, A History of God

"Kant had defined the Enlightenment as 'man's exodus from his self–imposed tutelage" or reliance upon external authority. The only way to God lay through the autonomous realm of moral conscience, which he called 'practical reason.'

Kant is going to stick a needle in it all.

Only a matter of time.

Before someone said that proving God's existence is one thing, caring one way or another is something else.

And now we were in the altogether.

Denial.

Hardly. He was simply asking: What's the point? After four thousand some odd years, and finally somebody comes along and asks what the Hell are we doing this for?

That Kant

Just asking, why do we have to posit a perfect being at all? Yes, if you do posit a perfect being, he has to exist because it would be absurd for him not to — that's a significant lack in a superior being…

The supreme being

Not existing — that's definitely a negative, and he can hardly not exist if he's perfect.

But why posit one at all?

"The Koran taught that a society which lived according to God's will, implementing justice, equality, and a fair distribution of wealth, could not fail."

"Even though he adopted a Messianic view of history that was heavily dependent on Judeo–Christian tradition, Marx dismissed God as irrelevant. Since there was no meaning, value, or purpose outside the historical process, the idea of God could not help humanity. Atheism, the negation of God, was also a waste of time. Yet 'God' was vulnerable to the Marxist critique, since he had often been used by the establishment to approve a social order in which the rich man sat in his palace while the poor man sat at his gate, This was not true of the whole monotheistic religion, however. A God who condoned social injustice would have appalled Amos, Isaiah, or Mohammed, who had used the idea of God to quite different ends that were close to the Marxist ideal." — Karen Armstrong

"To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of all true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of religious men." — Albert Einstein

These kids and their families are consumed with their religion — because it is a religion that can sustain and encompass all of life.

Out of fourteen million Jews, how many wicked sons could there be? A million? I doubt it. But it's not how many, it's who they are, how powerful, how influential? But who decides who is an Aprikos? To the Hasidim in The Chosen, Reuven Malter is one. Reuven, who wants to be a Rabbi.

"Islam is the desert." — Essad Bey

Today there are 400 million believers of Islam — one seventh of the world's population. That is way too many. Why? Because their resources are so limited. This is the inequity that needs to be addressed.

That means the issue is not Israel. Because Mamet is right. Never mind about Israel, we can get back to that later. Where Mamet is right, and where he should be trusted, is in the theatre, where his word is law. Mamet clearly states: There is no subtext.

Action talks and bullshit walks.

Ninety percent of European Rabbis were murdered in the shoah.

Max Dimont wrote in his history of the Jews, "This idea of a covenant with God has remained constant for 4000 years. This in turn gave rise to a will to survive as Jews, which has been the driving force in Judaism. Without it there can be no Judaism and no Jews. When this concept disappears, when the Jew, through a lack of this inner compulsion, no longer wishes to retain his identity as a Jew, then nothing will stand between him and assimilation, between him and his final disappearance."

If we all might adhere to the Koran and follow Jesus, and establish a world–wide system of social justice, the nation of Israel would thrive as a Jewish state, honored and respected and prized by the world's great civilizations, whether monotheist or pantheist.

"Black slave–trading was not a diabolical invention from Europe. It was Islam, which first practiced the black slave trade on a large scale." — Braudel

The Arabs don't enter the picture until stage three, although they have been there all along, hidden in plain sight, the perfection of religion. Jews, then Christians, and finally, Islam. The answer. Everything is codified.

The very notion of there being a Middle East is Euro-centric.

The Sunnis and the Shiites believe essentially the same thing; they have virtually no doctrinal differences. They differ as to the successor to the Prophet.

The Adventures of the French in the Holy Land

The French govern Lebanon after the first World War. But the Arabs are not to be denied. Although their army is clearly inferior, they attack. The French respond by taking over Syria too. Now the French have what the British want.

Is there any doubt that we are now, in the 21^st century, reaping what imperialism sewed in the 20th century? Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Palestine all came out of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War One. Iran used to be Persia.

Islam seemed rooted in the ancient kingdom of Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Yemen come to an agreement: Muslim Friendship and Arab Fraternity.

The first Arab–sraeli War was in 1948.

Most Muslims are not Arabs.

In 1933 Standard Oil wrangled an oil concession from Ibn Saud, the Muslim family that occupied the Holy Places of Islam. In 1938 it was discovered to be one of the biggest oil fields in the world.

Just the experience of reading it, filling in the blanks in my own world past, which can be said to begin in 1951, the simple telling of what led to the current state of affairs in what we in the west call the middle east, is appalling, so irretrievably wrong, so very very fucked up.

The Soviets "recognized" the Saudis right away, then the Brits, then the French.

Islam had a tendency to tilt toward the Soviets, because they knew what imperialism was all about. The Soviets, so thought the Arabs, are Communists, and that means they are anti–imperialist, right?

The Brits tried to stop Jews in England from emigrating to Palestine. Too many Jews were finding their way to Palestine and squatting there, buying land.

The Zionists formed an underground. In July 1946 they blew up an Israeli hotel, the King David, with British military officers and civilians inside.

Things were getting out of hand.

The United Nations recommended the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

The Arabs wondered if the UN really had the right to divide up a country against the wishes of a majority of its inhabitants. At the time there were 1,269, 000 Arabs living there and only 678, 000 Jews.

Nevertheless, the UN split it in half. What happened?

Civil War

The United States and the Soviet Union had both backed the creation of Israel in 1946, the world's two and only two super powers, so it was a done deal.

Forty million Arabs went to war with the Zionists to eliminate Israel right from the start. Forty million against an army of 60,000. But the Arabs were not unified, and they were defeated. In fact, the Zionists won ground they hadn't even been granted by the UN.

Arab Take–Over

Egypt started kicking the imperialist Brits out first. Nasser was the first Egyptian to rule Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs.

Nasser locates Egypt within three spheres — the Arab circle, the Islamic circle, and the African circle. They have a common goal: Resist imperialism.

For some, there was a choice to be made: am I a Muslim first or an Arab?

When Nasser died, Egypt turned to Sadat, who had been anti–British enough in his youth to have worked with the Nazis. It was no great leap for Sadat to convince the Egyptians that they weren't going to get anywhere until they took control of their own oil. That meant, digging it and pumping it — all of it. The hell with the oil companies. The Arabs started their own national oil company.

Zionism

The Nation of Israel is a sovereign state and has been since 1948. So if anybody wants to bitch about it now, it's a little too late for that.

What about Buddha?

Siddhartha was born in 563 BCE. And besides, the East is something else altogether. Purely spiritual. Hmm.

Jesus, as a boy, speaks with his elders in the Temple.

And then we don't hear another word from him for twenty years. From age twelve to thirty. Nothing. Where does he go? He goes east. Does he go to India? It's not unheard of. In fact, it's fairly common. After all, the reality of ancient Palestine is not exactly the land of milk and honey. Jesus goes east. He is a man in search of inner peace. What he finds is the Buddha. And he comes back a changed man.

Jesus was a Buddhist?

It's pretty obvious, isn't it? On the one hand you have this hard–ass, tribal, patriarchal, monotheistic, pecker–disfiguring authority, and he flees that, and he encounters a peaceful, gentle, pantheistic people, and he takes them into his soul. And his soul is big, like Walt Whitman's, bigger, it's all-encompassing.

And he comes back a changed man — and neither the Jews nor the Romans want anything to do with him.

Not exactly. He enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday with thousands of supporters, thousands, and on duty is a Roman force of only about 400. Jesus had an overwhelming force on his side. But he said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

Maybe Mark Twain said it best:

"The last Christian died on the cross."

And now the world is shattering.

What began as a rift between Palestinians and Jews (who now can buy land), has erupted into a fissure, from a crevice to a gaping hole in the earth that threatens to suck us all in.

The Iranians are fiercely anti–Israel. The entire region seems so. This new nation that plunked itself down in the middle of the twentieth century, after not having occupied the land since the time of the Roman Empire.

And "occupied" is the operative term here. The land was "owned" then by the Roman Empire, which ownership was acquired by force. The Roman Empire demonstrated clearly and it would seem for all time the veracity of Twain's statement: "Not one square inch of the earth's surface is in the possession of its rightful owner."

That makes one thing else just as clear. Who owns Israel? Not the Jews.

Why not give Manhattan back to the Indians?</p>

Give Florida back to the Seminoles.

The best security in the world is to be friends with your neighbors.

I'm sorry, but I've been somewhat distracted by the problems in the Middle East.

Problems.

Yes. I've been analyzing the situation the way you might a problem in chess. I know that sounds heartless, but at least I am concerned with it, rather that concerning myself with something else…

Like a chess problem.

A simple distribution, an equal distribution, a fair distribution. A re–distribution of wealth, land, resources.

"What there is should go to those who are good for it." — Brecht

Israel is about the size of New Jersey, right?

I know where you're going with this.

Why not give Israel back to the Palestinians, and give the Jews New Jersey?

Might as well give Florida back to the Seminoles while you're at it, got just about as much chance of happening.

People are already living in New Jersey.

Fuck em.

Seriously.

New Jersey's not like Palestine. You're not gonna incur the wrath of four hundred million Arabs.

There's nothing wrong with a Jewish state. I mean, what's wrong with Jews having their own state.

It's not the Holy Land.

I'm sorry?

Not the Holy Land.

No, it's not the Holy Land, it's New Jersey. What's wrong with New Jersey?

It's not the Holy Land.

New Jersey. New Judah.

No.

There were two kingdoms — Judah and Israel. We tried Israel — that didn't work. What about New Judah?

No.

When I told my Immigration of the Jews to New Jersey Story to my comrade, the historian Dirk Drake, he told me that a similar idea was current in the 1980s. Dirk knew of a displaced Iowa farmer, then living in Jacksonville, who promoted the use of failing Midwestern USA farmlands for relocating the Palestinians.

God spoke through that displaced farmer as much as he spoke through Mohammed. Or Moses. Or Jesus. Or me. Listen to me. This is the word of God. No, it's not. It's just the word of me. Which would be taking far too much credit, not to speak of blame. Surely you can conceive of a sense in which it is the word of God, because all words are.

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

Hindu terrorists are not exactly slipping under the radar, since they're responsible for the most terrorist attacks worldwide — aside from Iraq of course, where President Bush has elected to fight his war on Islamic terror, deciding to give the world's other terror, outside the Judeo–Christian realm, a pass, for now anyway.

Hindus, your time may come. For now, be thankful you don't have more oil.

Chaim Potok's The Chosen
Adapted by Aaron Posner
On stage at the Hippodrome State Theatre
March 2–25, 2007

"Just as Christians imitated Christ in an attempt to draw near to God, the Hasid imitated his tzaddik, who had made the ascent to God and practiced perfect devekuth. He was living proof that enlightenment was possible. Because the Tzaddik was close to God, the Hasidim could approach the Master of the Universe through him." — Karen Armstrong, A History of God

The Chosen is above all a story of the friendship of Danny Saunders, played by Elya Ottenberg, and Revuven Malter.

"We have about eight different options for the start of this play," Caldwell tells Michael Toth who plays Reuven as a young man. "Let's try starting by having you discovered."

"It was 1944," Reuven tells us, "the war was raging in Europe, and Europe was raging in Brooklyn."

There follows a catalogue of ethnic diversity, culminating with the Jews, "including the Hasidim."

It is at this moment that Reb Saunders, Danny's father, the Hasidic tzaddik (Howard Elfman) enters. "You feel his presence and acknowledge it," Caldwell directs. "You don't have to look at him, but we can't ignore each otheršs energy in the space. Howard, what is Reb coming in for?"

"He's been strolling through the streets of Brooklyn."

"All right. Then we have to establish that you are outside, and when you get upstage center and the Brooklyn Bridge is behind you, pause, and let's print that in the audiencešs mind. Let's say to them: these are the rules for the evening."

When Toth as the narrator reaches the line "To prove that Jewish boys were good Americans," Michael Littig as Young Reuven takes the stage.

"Let's switch the energy here," Caldwell directs, staging the moment by transposing the two actors, narration blending into action as one actor melds into another.

The brave idea behind the Hippodrome State Theatre's "One City One Story" is that there exists an idea that can hold a city in thrall. Judaism is a religion that honors learning, wisdom, and books.

The nation of Israel is built on an idea. "The slaughter of the six million Jews," Chaim Potok reflects in The Chosen, "would have meaning only on the day a Jewish state was established. Only then would their sacrifice begin to make some sense; only then would the songs of faith they had sung on their way to the gas chambers take on meaning; only then would Jewry become a light to the world, as Hašam had forseen."

To the notion that God gave Israel to the Jews, Reb Saunders fires back, "God will build the land, not Ben Gurion and his goyim."

And yet in the light of the six million — that's more Jews than live in either the United States or Israel today — the sovereign nation of Israel came into existence in 1948.

There are nearly six million Jews in America now. That's a little less than half of all the Jews in the world. Can humanity possibly realize how precious a commodity that is — even in a world that knows nothing besides commodities?

And yet what Mark Twain said still rings true.

"There isn't one square inch of the worldšs surface in the possession of its rightful owner."

Civilization itself advances only so far as societies not only tolerate but positively value Jewish culture. Without that, there is no Spinoza, no Marx, Freud, Einstein, Proust, no Chaim Potok, no David Mamet. I wouldn't want to live in a world without Jews.

The Chosen was performed in March 2007 at the Hippodrome State Theatre, Gainesville, Florida.

Sources

The Chosen
Chaim Potok

The Wicked Son
David Mamet

Jews, God, and History
By Max Dimont

The Gifts of the Jews
Thomas Cahill

A History of God
Karen Armstrong

A History of the Middle East
Peter Mansfield

Holy Terror
Terry Eagleton

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