What links Bob Dylan to Yom Kippur? An Ode to the Nobel Prize winner.

Three disconnected paragraphs coming up and a slightly longer post written in something of a rush:

Last week, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. I accepted many congratulations on his behalf. For those who are blissfully unaware, I obsess over Dylan like a Golders Green resident obsesses over an Etrog at an all-you-can eat arbah minim sale. 

A metronome is a strange little instrument that is used by musicians to make sure they are keeping with the correct beat. It is also used as an adjective to describe something incredibly consistent. Glenn Mcgrath, the great Australian fast bowler, was often described as possessing 'metronomic accuracy' for landing every ball on the same spot during a career which spanned over 10 years.

I have recently started giving a seminar at University on the relationship between science and religion. One of the most interesting aspects of this for me is the way many people relate to religion: It is something that, if it makes you happy, is a good thing. Ultimately, the way many students address the issue of challenges or contradictions that exist between the religious and scientific spheres is that religion is personal, feeling based and non-binding whereas science is factual and commands obedience.

I find this attitude to be quite familiar in terms of how religious people are encouraged to engage with their religion: make it personal, your own, and meaningful. 'Have a meaningful fast'.  What most people mean by meaningful is something along the lines of personal inspiration, an emotional interaction with the prayer book or general positive thoughts about the year ahead.

Yet in the midst of all this liberal meaning, which in principle I have nothing against, the conservative sporting a tweed jacket and coattails in me rears his ugly head: hogwash - this is about duty. Majesty. God is not simply your nice and warm friend. 
I think the same thing when it comes to people's obsession with halakhic details and general sentiments that religion is effectively about loving halakha in all its minutiae. I don't think the power of halakhic practice is enjoying it at all. It actually helps if you don't particularly love it.
 It is in its stability, its metronomic reliability and permanence that I think lies its real power and is why it is the Jewish expression of religiosity. The metronome, that reassuring presence, like family, which is part of your security and sense of self. Like family, it can also drive you up the wall. But it is always there, giving you a nudge or reminder in the direction of God. As the rabbi in our shul mentioned over Yom Kippur, looking at the list of regrets in the siddur is a bit like the data overload of being on facebook. And this is a point I would like to assert as something which rings true in my own mind at least: halakha provides religious context and boundaries but not necessarily content. 

To explain by example: As I was standing for the repetition of the Amidah during Rosh ha shana/Yom Kippur, I thought to myself: Why am I standing? Instantly I visualised someone running up to me with a Mishna brurah showing me a source. That made me want to lie on the floor and start digging. Nope, not because of that. I thought of all the times I have ridiculed some of the sailor-on a pirate ship-style liturgical tunes of the Ashkenazic community, is that meaningful to me? But nevertheless, there I was, singing my heart out and God knows I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world. Then the metronome came back into the picture. Then came Dylan. The two are linked.

Dylan is my metronome, to be frank. The disconnected, stream-of consciousness lyrics paint pictures that have accompanied me for the past ten years. What do they really mean? Even if I accept the premise of the question, it doesn't matter and I don't care. But they accompany me through many moments. Because the songs are loaded with ambiguities. Ambiguities that seem to produce many simultaneous and sometimes contradictory meanings.

Dylan uses language to penetrate the mind and heart like no other singer. There are no 'Love songs' that are simply descriptive of primal desire or heartbreak. Lyricists today seem to think that by exaggerating emotions as much as possible, they touch on something truly authentic. Well, I beg to differ. Take Adele's 'Someone like you' for instance, widely considered a modern day masterpiece. Or something from Ed Sheeran. Certainly, they manage to communicate something deeply felt but it usually can be summarised by the sentence: Breakups are sad and painful. 

Dylan's words are playfully ambiguous so they can mean several things; most importantly they realise that emotion is usually fraught with tension from several sides. You very rarely only feel one thing. Despair can be accompanied by relief. Words that sometimes sound like the most painful things on earth can in time come to communicate healing and comfort.
 People tell me it's a sin to know and feel too much within I still believe she was my twin but I lost the ring, she was born in spring and I was born to late, brought on by a simple twist of fate. 

Words that have no obvious meaning to the non-initiated start playing automatically in my mind at times that seem oddly appropriate
Aint it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet? 

Or just plain weird:

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row

Who's the jealous monk? No idea. But I've definitely seen the electric violinists on desolation row.

It is largely for this reason that I can listen to Dylan almost endlessly. It is as though his words adapt to suit the situation that I find myself in at present. This is what links Yom Kippur to Dylan. The power of the metronome. That meaning doesn't need to be some clever construction on the part of the individual, it is enough for it to be a familiar friend giving you a nudge, wink or pat on the back. A call from the ancient past as storms brew ahead.
Everyone likes a good revolution on Rosh ha shana, a reinvention. 
But truth be told, revolutions have a tendency to be bloody, destructive and not particularly effective. 

Atlantic City by the cold grey sea
Hear a voice crying, "Daddy, " I always think it's for me
But it's only the silence in the buttermilk hills that call
Every new messenger brings evil report
'Bout armies on the march and time that is short
And famines and earthquakes and train wrecks and the tearin' down of the wall

Did you ever have a dream, that you couldn't explain?
Ever meet your accusers, face to face in the rain?
She had chrome brown eyes that I won't forget as long as she's gone
I see the screws breakin' loose, see the devil pounding on tin
I see a house in the country being torn apart from within

I can hear my ancestors calling from the land far beyond

When they said REPENT, REPENT, I wonder what they meant?

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions 
Won't be nothing 
Nothing you can measure anymore 
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world 
has crossed the threshold 
and it has overturned 
the order of the soul 
When they said REPENT REPENT 
I wonder what they meant 

Leonard Cohen is up there with the greatest songwriters and speaks with a poetic voice even greater than Dylan's. He only loses marks with me because he concentrates too exclusively on death and religious doubt so he's hard to sing in the shower. But that aside, the idea of repentance cuts to the heart of the problem of sincerity in religious life: Feeling sorry for anything is so difficult, let alone for pretty much everything. 

Last week I took one of my all-too-rare early morning trips on the London Underground and I reflected on the scene before my eyes, which resembled those classic paintings about ageing: First, there were the new suits, immaculately attired in their tailored fits and quirky little ties, beads of perspiration pouring down their still excited faces; then, there were those in their mid-thirties who looked a little scruffier, some even wore T-shirts. They seemed less enthusiastic, clutching their coffees and smart-phones with a grim determination to persevere. But then I noticed a truly poignant sight: 

A young woman, around 30, fast asleep, holding tight to the pole on the tube with an expression of such tiredness I could only feel tremendous pity; instantly, my mind conjured up the phrase 'A sacrifice on the altar of capitalism'. I have no doubt that she needed to be there to earn a living, but honestly, London can sometimes resemble some sort of intense, money-obsessed dystopia, so far from the beach life we have in Hove. Communist rant over.

Sometimes it feels like the high holy days are a sacrifice on the altar of Judaism. Something we see as necessary to continue but not much beyond. 

Repent, repent? I can regret momentarily, I can commit briefly, I can introspect and aspire but in a world where we are bombarded by endless information, I am all too aware that these feelings, this model will be stored away somewhere where they can be re-opened at an appropriate time, probably in another year or so. The more I hear on the topic, the sturdier the file becomes.

Because everything we are meant to regret and improve upon are generally quite specific things and details that rarely touch upon the thing itself, a relationship with God, trying to understand my place in the greater context of existence and what on earth it means?

It is very possible to both mean something and not mean it at the same time, whilst being very sincere: For instance, when I read a list of the things I have not done properly this year, ignored or done wrong I may feel regret. And if I don't, I regret that I don't regret.

But this regret is utterly disconnected from the part of me that functions the rest of the year. Why? Because I have mentally filed that this is the time of year to repent and commit to something new and that file closes in about a month and a half. 

It feels like the woman on the tube: an intense commitment to something that I feel compelled to do. The rest of the year I hate feelings of guilt - they seem counterproductive and fairly pointless, and is probably one of the worst ways for me to change myself. Call me postmodern, but the link between guilt, shame and God is highly tenuous in the world I occupy.  

Once again, I know that I will be told I have missed the point, and that deep down all prayer is meant to lead to this true, sincere end. But truth be told, I think that religious society misses a general point when it comes to the God-man dynamic: These days, intensity is often counterproductive to religiosity because it is not something that ennobles us or makes us kinder, better people. Just more intense.

 Following every word meticulously in the siddur whilst reading its translation in the artscroll might momentarily allow me to focus on a particular concept but it is actually withdrawal and space which brings me to a place where I can actually begin to perceive what it means to repent because with withdrawal I can see the whole, the total with honesty and I said last week, without honesty you aint got nothing but a life of self-deception. 

Last week my wife and I briefly went to Devil's Dyke, an expanse of countryside near our house, which I had never been to before. I looked around me and suddenly I felt I understood. I had stopped concentrating and started absorbing the universe in a manner that reminded me of being a child with a siddur. And my mind cleared and I began to feel things that I actually regretted and where I wanted to go.

 Call me a cliche but when you upset someone you care about, you want forgiveness not only because of the action itself but because you value the relationship itself. Without the latter, the former is pointless. Nature is a wonderful thing, gets me every time - I should have remembered that. 

Someone who doesn't want to be named said something very perceptive to me yesterday: Jewish law is full of beauty but when it's taken to extremes I don't see that anymore. Either extreme: An obsession with every detail or reduced to rabbinic legal necessity. And when we see beauty, we are more likely to long for the mind behind it, I would suggest. 

(Don't get all 'that's subjective' with me, sonny Jim, if you didn't love the feeling of keeping rules you wouldn't be preaching, we all play that game.) 

Historian Jacob Katz made a very perceptive remark in his book Tradition and Crisis when he commented that the religious power of ritual observance brought communities together. When people are united by things they deeply care about, their differences are blurred in their common passion and aspiration.

I see this in small communities, funnily enough, even when the congregants aren't religiously observant. As someone said to me this morning, 'if I don't go to the minyan, the shul will die and I can't let that happen'. Once upon a time, the shul meant something deeply to people, and the older generation hold onto that with a great reverence in small communities. But Shul no longer conjures images of reverence, majesty, grandeur or even spirituality. 

It is a shame but times change, it's importance has diminished as a centre of Jewish life in the modern world.

So, to all those, including myself, who find themselves praying for the final whistle during Rosh ha shana and the happy-go-lucky distinctly Ashkenazi final kaddish which I find myself humming throughout the year,

Maybe take a walk outside, you might find a friend. Maybe that's what they meant?
 

Lost in Space: On being distant from God

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
American Pie

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me.
Bob Dylan, Every Grain of Sand.

I imagine the view of earth is quite beautiful from space. Even from the i360, Brighton's very own moving observation tower, there is something quite cathartic about looking down at dozens of tiny dot people going about their daily lives. Fascinating to watch, yet ultimately, so irrelevant, so petty as we soar high in the clouds.

This sensation of distance crops up frequently in daily life.  I felt it a few weeks ago during Tish'a b'av and I feel it again during Elul: 
Rather than creating emotion,  the occasions present a slideshow with clips of every possible meaning and emotional stimulus, and I simply observe them from a distance. 

 Tish'a B'av is a classic example because it's supposed to be so sad. But instead I go through the following process of considering all the various approaches towards the occasion. For instance,  outreach organisations will focus on points a,b and c using tools x.y and z.
The more modern orthodox will make sure to avoid those dramatics and instead do e,f and g to prove their intellectual credentials. I will probably try and remember something from childhood and attempt to trigger an emotion that way.  
But all this time I am an observer, somewhat curious but very removed from it all.

It is strange and rather sad to find yourself approach religion in this way, particularly when so many other areas of life are filled with such immediacy.

Quite often I hear my own former arguments about habituation and the need to stir oneself to religious feeling through action. I know every answer you could throw at me, I say back, and yet something makes me lack the inclination to do so.

And so it seems that what has been several years of obsessing over authenticity has led to a curious conclusion: I only value ideas when I find them interesting. Therefore I hate clear conclusions, easy answers or ideas that I have heard many times before. Interesting=good. Boring=bad. 

It seems that in the last few years, any ideas that don't seem to be moving or causing some sort of mental friction lose all their relevance.

What I think drove me more bananas about outreach organisations than anything else was the fact that these clearly intelligent people were content to dish out the same soundbite answers to life's problems year in year out without ever seeming to consider adapting, evolving or improving them.

It was like having to listen to Oasis on repeat for the rest of your life.

But I have the same problem with those who abandon religion altogether. It is as if they have simply given up when the going gets tough. For me, it may be a long and windy road but to shut out the great avenues of possibility and richness of the quest for God is a disappointing choice to make. I am no empricist, needless to say.

And this, perhaps, is the intrigue of mysticism for me. Not, necessarily in any recognisable form, but more the fact that mysticism is distinctly personal and hard to define. It has a point which recognises that the God-man relationship ultimately has a drop off zone where words fail. When I discovered this very notion in Maimonides it gave a whole new dimension to his rationalism.

It also raises the very simple point that you have to be honest when it comes to religion. What do I honestly care about? And what does it mean to believe in God beyond belonging to a particular social group?

 Honesty often comes at the price of conformity. For me, perhaps it was the stark realisation that I will only find God in those areas where I find that real passion, that raison d'etre in life.

And most of those areas are anathema to the mentality that I had been surrounded with growing up in north west London.

 Whilst I commit to halakha and particularly appreciate the rhythm and structure it gives to life, that isn't what gets me up in the morning.

 Go away society.
 And hello darkness my old friend.

Three weeks after tisha b'av I sat in shul thinking about the moments I used to use to feel solidarity with my fellow Jews and instead of those images inspiring a particular feeling I realised that it was more likely to be the process of image making that made it for me. It used to be leadership on youth camps that invigorated me but at one point it stopped.

The challenge of facing that emptiness and distance is part of what makes life worth living.


Life calls on you to find 'it' elsewhere and keep chasing. So I try to chase. Sometimes it is to challenge my comfortable opinions; sometimes it is to get irritated by postmodern nonsense;
sometimes it is that very same desire to impart education. Other times it's just watching the waves rolling back and forth.

And in the end, I think, feeling detached from all the things in religious life you are meant to feel attached to? Not such a bad thing. As an insider, people and things can drive you crazy. Drudgery can make religion a tiresome burden. And the guilt can drive you crazy.
But from a distance, that view is truly beautiful.

Do you want to be a saint?

Sometimes religious life is characterised by an odd sort of tension. The world of piety, which aims at a precise, quantifiable perfection and the world of holistic religiosity, which rejects detailed examinations of anything as being overly pedantic. The holistic religious person enters a neighbourhood such as Me'ah She'arim and leaves with bewilderment and a degree of disgust. The pious person feels the same way about going to Tel Aviv or Netanya.

When I was in Israel a few months ago, I observed what I consider to be the difference between a religious society and a pious society. Israel is a secular state, right? Well it isn't, really; even in Tel Aviv, that sin city. Religion plays its part in every aspect of life in Israel, sometimes more subtly than explicitly. It cultivates a particular mindset about the world and has God at its centre in some form or another. But, in a sense, it remains 'natural'. It hovers around regular life but does not necessarily infuse its every aspect by shoving it in your face. 

I don't think this has nothing to do with being 'Frum'. Frumkeit is often derided for being superficial and insincere. I will not go down this road as it seems very unfair to question other people's motives. Rather what I will point out is that groups of people who try to become 'frum' are concerned almost exclusively with piety, the quantifiable aspect of religiosity. Laws, intricate details of Shabbat observance, pots and pans, tzniut, what I should and shouldn't do. Even the perfection of particular traits. 

This is the road to saintliness. From what I have studied, the undercurrent of kabbalistic piety is that religiosity can be quantified. Even a perusal of the mussar literature that remain the works that are cited in terms of Jewish morals and ethics are quite determined to see character development as a systematic, quantifiable entity. There is a road, a path and a clear direction, even if it is difficult to achieve.

But you have to ask the question at one point, do I want to be a saint? No, not some guy who gives afterlife credits via spare body parts but rather do I really want to be perfect in this sense? In a particular, pedantic sense - do I aspire to scrutinise every action to achieve perfection? The honest answer is probably no. 

Why? Because I have never looked up to saint-like behaviour. I see how aspirations towards this way of life leads to boring, clone-like societies dominated by a certain insecurity, fear and looking over the shoulder. I can't bring myself to want that. It was the sort of irritated feeling I got when looking at a shidduch form. 

What I wrote: Keep Shabbat, tick, keep kosher, tick, cover hair tick. 

What I thought: Shut up and go away. Just go away. 

I think that piety is confusing as an aspiration because too often it seems rather irritating and pedantic. And by quantifying everything, the joy and spontaneity associated with mitzvah observance can quickly evaporate. Stop thinking about things that should not be overthought. Especially in the realm of interpersonal behaviour, reading about how to behave will often have the opposite effect.  

 And to many, piety is synonymous with being religious, and this can be extremely off-putting. A nicely drawn ladder of self-improvement seems kind of self-righteous and self-contained. It just isn't relaxed, calm or particularly easy to admire. 

Relationships are all about the details? Erm. Not really. If I was examined on every tiny thing I did all the time I would go bananas. Details have their moments.  

I always think of this one person who is widely admired for mastering his instincts and never getting too emotional but I always thought of him as a robot who has lost touch with fellow human beings. Saintliness might be for some but this-worldly toil and acceptance of fallibility does it much more for others because those people get life as it is.

Does this conflict with religious belief and observance? I think it very much depends what we mean by religious and it often plays out in my head as a battle between myself circa 2010 and myself now. And perhaps therein lies a conflict within how we understand religion itself. Should the direction of religious life be serene, clearly-marked and harmonious like a David Gower cover drive or should it be gritty, tough and fighting like an Alan Border at the crease? 

Steve Waugh, one of the most Australian captains in Test history, spoke of his need to evolve from a dashing young strokemaker to a gritty fighter who would not give away his wicket at all costs. Sometimes you need to figure out the time and place for mr. pious to come to the crease and when to tell him to go away.  

David Gower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLk3GudLFpg 
Alan Border: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xgEnd6LSY

Reflections on turning 25: A sermon that can't be delivered.

Last week I turned 25. I had originally written a long post which began like this:

'Traditionally, I've always hated birthdays. It always triggers something of an 'existential' crisis ( a favourite crisis of the modern orthodox). What is the point of it all? Where on earth am I going and what have I achieved? Time can be a cruel thing. It lurks unnoticed and one day you look behind you and wonder where it has gone. And before you lies the chasm between what you thought you could be, should be and are.' 

But then I've deleted the rest. There is a time and place for cynical ranting and it seems rather ungracious to do so when by any standards I have a wonderful life. Also, because intense moods pass and leave with you a slight sense of shame. But the date does lurk every year and poses a challenge: Justify.  25 also seems significant: No longer a child. Nearer to 30 than 20. Hmmm.

Perhaps based on the optimism of teenage years, or the years I spent in organisations promoting 'meaningful' as opposed to 'meaningless' existence, I have struggled and will continue to struggle with the idea of making a mark on the world. Whatever I do I can't escape the fact that most of all, I want to be significant and original. 

Yes, to all Pokemon fans, I want to be very best that no-one ever was. And I'm beginning to understand things I never used to. The pursuit of wealth, for example. Mad, exhausted sleep-deprived city stooges? I get it. Perhaps it is wealth they pursue but perhaps it is also the fact that money is quantifiable. Promotions are quantifiable. Progress and self-actualisation is quite easy to visualise in the drab grey walls they occupy. They can be the best.  

It all seems rather selfish, I must admit.

In fact, sometimes I think PHD theses are trying to project the individual's desire for uniqueness into an obscure study of something fairly irrelevant. 

I know from experience that there is nothing worse than reading something which is very similar to something you have thought on a particular area. Argh, must find a small detail to nitpick and then crush: Yes, x was clearly influenced by outdated structuralist/ historicist perspectives! Ha! I can breath as I send the buffoon back to his lair and I am king again.

I had the same problem with finishing my Masters dissertation. By the end of it I disagreed with almost everything I had said at the beginning and hated the comfy prospect of defining mysticism and analysing Maimonides' writings accordingly to fit into whatever I wanted him to say.

 Because it was not good enough, nothing I could say would do the man justice. So what was I doing?

And this is a problem with writing blogs in general. So much happens in the news, so many emotions are felt and by the time you get round to putting proverbial pen to paper you have changed your mind. 

The problem with wanting to change the world is simply that the only thing you can conceivably actively change it to is some vague imitation of yourself: 
'I wish school could inspire people to value education for its own sake!' 'Shutup Picasso, kids need to learn how to pay taxes and get a job. What you been smoking?' 

To accept that requires a humility that is not easily acquired - most people don't want what I want. Massive medieval Libraries and cricket statues in a castle resembling Hogwarts may seem like heaven to me but I think it would bewilder most other people.

So a few weeks ago I wrote down a few aphorisms that from my little red book of turning 25 as part of the need to feel important upon reaching the landmark; but as I sit here looking at them I have seen that they require heavy editing, but I'll try and leave most of them intact.

 Living in Brighton, I can't really call this Eastern wisdom. Maybe Southern wisdom. Or just Southern trains. Choo Choo.

On Judaism: Judaism will always require a mystical element for it to have any continued relevance to its adherents. No, not necessarily 'Jewish mysticism', much of which is not mystical at all but are simply pieces of information derived from sources considered mystical due to their vaguely kabbalistic and oooh coool connotations. 
I use mystical in the universal sense - that which treats God as real, tangible and important. Sephardim at prayer real. If being religious can ever mean something similar to attending a football match it will have done well. That is something that may have to be found in unexpected areas. 

Broadly speaking, in the modern world this requires a system of thinking that can encompass all Jewish areas of the universal and particular into a worldview that treats both as important. We cannot ignore our minds or our moral compasses, but if your idea of authentic Judaism is something that could have been copied and pasted from the Guardian last week, I'm not interested: Mr. Zeitgeist, go and party with your adherents. That's all I have to say about that. 

Truth be told, if you're unwilling to live in a bubble, experiencing this feeling can be bloody difficult.

On ideologies: You know, one problem I've always had with modernity is its flimsiness - here today gone tomorrow. This has also affected the way groups looking to 'change' things come across. Thou shalt love authenticity; brother. Religion shouldn't just be a social institution, it should be a pursuit of truth. 

The flip side of this is that you need to grapple honestly with issues that don't sit comfortably. If you can't find God in the Gemarah, look for Him elsewhere.

Whatever you think, just be nice about it. Whatever it is. Because it's not the be all and end all. Accept your inherent limitations. When death comes along or pain comes along and we forget our grandiose opinions in an instant anyway..

The 'meaning' of life: You can say meaning is 'made' not 'found' all day but you'll keep asking the question all the same. I think that we want there to be one point in life where we can turn around and say 'It's alright Ma, I made it'. 

The point of Academia: Still not entirely sure. To add to the sum of knowledge? Knowledge that no-one seems to access.

Right now I think it's to try and reassert the link between knowledge and goodness in society, to encourage a quest of discovery that empowers and enthuses the individual as mind and spirit combine in a relentless ascendant search for the ring of power. 

General 'self-help' thoughts (copyright: American publications, anytime between 1980 and now): Don't take anything too seriously, especially yourself. Be good to people regardless of their merits. Invest in personal relationships. Treat God like a relationship and be prepared to struggle, grapple and scratch your head. 

Expect little from human beings but believe in their potential. Because the masses are morons capable of great things. 

Time is best viewed cyclically: You are not the same as you were 1, 5, and 10 years ago. Don't feel guilty about that. Guilt achieves nothing. Just strap in and embrace the journey ahead with all the tools you've acquired. 

Don't preach to people too much about mistakes you've made that they should avoid, mistakes can be the best things you will ever do. Don't worry too much about the future. That old story of a climax and fall in your life, the 'best days of our lives'? Just an illusion. Things sucked then as they do now, you've just forgotten those bits. Be nostalgic about now - play pokemon, it helps. 

People should take flight as they wish; to discover, seek and explore. But you aren't born in a vacuum, don't know everything and someone is always more informed than you. Have humility to see beyond your cleverness. Truth can't be reduced to things you can measure in a lab, and if it could I wouldn't want it. But seek it nonetheless. 

Rock n roll. Keep on keeping on. Listen to Bob Dylan.  

Sex abuse and the referendum: Us and them.

Us and them and after all we're only ordinary men. Pink Floyd.

A lot of things have happened over the last few weeks. 

 For the first time in my life I felt myself emotionally moved by politics, and also realised how strong certain feelings could spill into utter disdain for democracy and the ability of human beings to act wisely. But since then I've calmed down somewhat.

But far more harrowing that week was the breaking news of a scandal in the Jewish community where a sex abuser was retained as a capacity of rabbi by a number of institutions who ignored evidence of his conduct. 

It was particularly scary to read descriptions of his character: Controlling, making those around him emotionally dependant, living through them, crushing their confidence and lifting them out again. Without them realising. This resonated. I have experienced this type of character before, in my own life, and it is terrifying. 

But perhaps the issue that bothers me most comes down to these three words: Us and Them. 

We, the English. We want control of our money, our country, our laws, our people, our heritage. They the foreigners, they the immigrants, they the Europeans. Let them burn. The attitude scares me as a Jew and as a human being. 

Yes, I'm sure some used their calculators to argue that they will in the long term have more cash somehow but the number of slogans and comments suggesting otherwise leads me to think that this was not the only issue at hand.

And you never ask questions when God's on your side. Bob Dylan.

Us, the religious people, us in possession of truth and insight, we the select. When the whole concept of being religious is thought about exclusively in terms of knowledge of texts, Judaism is whatever the rabbi says it is as he's the expert, and Judaism covers all areas of life, he must be right. Or we must protect him as he must have just taken things a bit 'too far' but is essentially well meaning.

Do you see how easy it is to pretend that everything is ok?

You can make all the checks and supervision you want but once you're on the inside it's very hard to take a look at a situation from the outside. Changing attitudes that are so deeply ingrained would seem to some as an impossible struggle. When it's us and them you don't think about much beyond the walls of your mind. 

The tragedy in Israel recently only serves to galvanise this sort of attitude, and clearly I can't blame anyone for thinking that but... Us and them Us and them. Us and them.  

Reading this back, it looks like I have great anger towards being religious. I don't. I love being religious. 
But I used to think that insularity was a personality type or a lifestyle choice. 
But increasingly I see it as dangerous and dark. 
Us...
and them?

Is there virtue in being ignorant? Donald Trump as the main reason not to live in a big ivory tower.

In general, I find politics to be juvenile and irritating. But recently this sense of irritation has spread to the thing I spend my days most involved in, typing away on a laptop: Academia and education. At times it feels very hollow and incomplete. What do I mean? I mean that the message it generally promotes is either to make money or serve the lofty aim of being a valuable 'thing in itself''.

Sometimes I think of the rise of Trump as being the product of the utter failure of western education to have any significant impact upon the 'real' lives of 'real' people. 

I do not mean in terms of subject material, either. It is the process of education as much as the result of it that is important. Education should broaden the mind to allow you to view the world from multiple perspectives and understand where other people are coming from. Not only from a rationalistic standpoint but also in terms of human empathy.

This should be its purpose, and whilst obviously no system can account for all the quirks of human beings, it should at the very least bring to attention the ridiculousness of brazen extremes. It should, at the very least, teach you that the world is a complex place which requires a degree of caution before you are convinced of your own rightness or are persuaded by slogans. Apologies for the dismissive arrogance of my tone.

Academics in the humanities and social sciences  thrive on writing about issues that are self-contained to the extent that not only do normal people have no idea what they are talking about but that only a select few in their subject area do either. There is too often no relationship with other areas of thought and no attempt to make that jump to consider how to improve society or even to attempt to understand it better or even to dwell upon how a given topic relates to themselves as human beings.

The ultimate sign of intelligence remains financial success or the ability to express yourself unclearly. 'Truth' and 'facts' are just word games. 

The compartmentalisation of knowledge means that very few are able to achieve the next step: wisdom. And, with the ridiculousness of the American situation (not to mention Israeli politics) it would be nice to have a bit more of that in our society.

Take Richard Dawkins, for example; brilliant mind who regularly makes crude and hysterical statements that do not even attempt to understand a perspective beyond his own. To avoid accusations of religious prejudice I have often extended the same accusation to people involved in the rabbinate.

I had an entertaining example of this the other week, where a Frum guest spoke in Brighton synagogue about the great evils of women dressing inappropriately and how this is the worst spiritual generation that there has ever been. Yes, in Brighton. Laughing at the ridiculousness of his inability to ahem read his audience and also by the fact that such a scripted line remains compelling to a man in his fifties, I remembered that these exact sentiments could be communicated in a Yeshiva environment and no-one would bad an eyelid. 

There are many people out there, hiding in their broom cupboards with a wealth of knowledge and deep understanding to share; and yet, like the volumes they pore over, they fade into the dust and most people don't know any better. Instead, the headlines are dominated by the boorish statements of a rich tycoon and the angry prattle of indignant people on twitter, feeling very offended. 

Ah well, the sabbath beckons, off to return to my commune.

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Are we trapped by hearing the same messages of freedom every year?

Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

'Chimes of Freedom' Bob Dylan. 

The idea of freedom implies an ability to be able to control our lives without external hardships preventing us from doing so, but it is also a passionate cry of hope:

Freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of information. 

Often closely linked with equality, all these 'freedoms' look towards a future that is better than the present, given the access to what is being requested.

But what that means is never quite clear. Once one freedom is realised others will be sought. Freedom chimed in the sixties, everyone became disillusioned again in the 70s, God blessed America and fat corporations in the 80s and 90s Internet came along in the noughties and now in the noughteens it thinks for us. 

So, Pesach 2016, what does freedom mean in a religious sense?Generally, one of two things. Option 1. Freedom to serve God.

Hmm Re-defining the term and not exactly an explanation of how this is achieved so bit too much lip service there.

 Option 2. Self liberation. Certainly an admirable idea. Break out of self-imposed limits. Good message.

But it becomes frustrating when it is the only thing said again and again, without questioning whether thinking on such an introspective level a. is useful for everyone b. whether it is a helpful message or c. just boxes us into narrow thoughts without thinking about the wider community?

 Whilst the chagim/festivals can at times be spiritually revitalising at other times the cyclical concept of time seems like an endless merry-go-round. I struggle hearing the same things too often so I try and find different ways to look at these messages.  

My own quest thoughts about freedom over Pesach is closely related to how I understand personal creativity and dynamism and how that struggles to express itself in a community framework. 

Many of the people I know with the most interesting perspectives on life feel no relationship whatsoever with the Orthodox communities that surround them, even if they are nominally involved. 

How do we, as Jews, create a society which is both loyal, traditional, spontaneous and dynamic - and how do we get people to want such a society? Why is it that institutions that associate with 'frumkeit' tend to be one dimensional, boring and fail to appeal beyond a certain age? 

This is something that Nathan Lopez Cardozo constantly talks about in his blogposts (Thank you Michael for showing me his latest one) and I used to never pay much attention to but increasingly it is a message that resonates.

From some of my own experiences of 'outreach' organisations who share this vision, there can be a quite blatant manipulation towards a particular, very specific agenda,  and the list of jaded participants is long and depressing. 

To keep this short I will share two corporate-sounding suggestions: Need and empowerment.  People feel invested when they feel needed. But not just needed as a body to turn up to an event to make up a number but as an individual with their own mad ideas, appreciated for their own oddness. 

People in leadership are not always the best listeners, even if you feel listened to, and simply communicate their conviction about the rightness of their position. It helps if you are clever, loud and slightly arrogant.

So let's empower, somehow, and listen to what people think and have to say about the world. Risk it, and we might set ourselves free.       


 

  

Drunken Jews: Two hours of optimism, once a year

May you build a ladder to the stars, climb on every rung, may you stay forever young. 

Purim, forgive the pun, can be a very sobering experience (This is a bit late, admittedly). Whilst explanations for inebriation on the day range from expanding God-awareness and exposing a profound inner world to blurring the lines of reality to see the hidden nature of God in history, the reality is usually far more mundane. Nevertheless it has one quality that stands out which remains longer than the hangover the next day: optimism.

More than any other festival, under the boozy haze scattered with flashes of religious sentiment, this message shines through: No matter how bad things get, things will get better and there is always hope. Not for any particular reason, but because God runs the world even if we do not see it.

This is not just a message of Purim but is also expressed in the unusual bonds of solidarity that the festival helps to cultivate. People who never normally speak to each other become best friends, talking and laughing together. Under the cloud of inebriation, people forget their social differences and there is a general feeling that the world can be transformed for better but also not to dwell too much on the negative aspects of this world. 

But then tomorrow comes, and like most other inspiring experiences, fades away. Ten days later, it has already disappeared over the horizon. But it asks a question of those who claim to be religious, particularly in the aftermath of the terrible terrorist attacks that occurred a few days before Purim: 

Do we honestly feel optimism about the future? One of the great qualities of faith, one that I and I'm sure many others struggle with, is the ability to incorporate negative life experiences into a positive, transformative mindset to persevere regardless of the consequences. 

And it is one that I question whether the Jewish world is particularly good at. Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel issues are certainly real and need addressing but must they dominate in such a prominent manner? I recall a facebook post by a particular rabbi during a time of rocket fire telling people off for trivial posts during a time of attack but is this a useful, helpful or positive way to see the world? Sometimes it seems that on a public level, protest against problems actually gets in the way of cultivating a vibrant and positive attitude to the world. Fear, guilt and indignation can become crutches that we lean upon in religious life to the extent that we can't imagine life without them.

Purim doesn't necessarily teach us that things will get better tomorrow but it does provide a useful antidote against despair about the world around us. We would do well, as Dylan prayed for his newborn sung, to try to stay forever young.      

View from the seafront: An Orthodox Jew Living in Brighton, far away from the big city

'You're going to Brighton?!' The question was often posed as if I was leaving for Siberia. Alternatively: 'That's so brave of you!' or 'Are you ok for food?' as if we had been stranded on a desert island with an occasional ferry sailing past for essential supplies.

Well surprisingly, the distance between Hove and Kosher Kingdom has proved to be less painful than many had expected. And it has helped me observe several things about community life.

About 18 months ago I wrote a blog about why I loved living Manchester and how community life was much more to do with friendliness than outlook but I would like to add another element to that: Need. In small communities everyone is needed so everyone is important. Not for their intelligence or for a function they perform but simply for existing. Everyone is therefore invested in the project of community building and it becomes part of their own personal identity. I could be wrong but I also think this mutual dependence helps people become nicer to each other.  

In Brighton, for instance, if one of the regulars doesn't turn up on Mondays and Thursdays we don't get a Minyan. In Hendon if you don't turn up for a year of Mondays and Thursdays it's unlikely that anyone would notice. Maybe it's the difference between living in a big city and not but I find that the idea of community matters much more to me in Brighton than it did in London. In addition, the small University J-Soc is not simply a means for Jews to pretend they can take their drink, it becomes an important part of community life. 

Jews like to live in big cities. Bigger is usually seen to be better. 'London? There's a big community there no? A good community.' 'New York? It's practically Jewish!' But cities also tend to be loud, impatient and very expensive. Jerusalem is paradise right? Well, not if you don't like lots of traffic and noise. As subversive as that sounds. 

There are actually many advantages of leaving the big city; for one, it allows you to slow down a bit. See nature, and yes, even get in touch with God a bit more - it is much harder to pay Him any mind in the concrete jungle. For another, comfort zones can be very stagnant. Humans like to be creative and strive for an impact in this world. 

Instead of fretting over the prospect of living in a place where pre-checked lettuce isn't readily available, perhaps leaving our comfort zones helps us invest much more strongly in our values and identity and develop in new, unforseen ways? In fact, I would recommend travel as a healthy alternative to intensive Kiruv seminars as a means of reconnecting with your identity (bring books with as well). And by travel I don't mean going to Thailand on drunken holidays. 

Whilst conventional wisdom sympathised with the Hendon boy forced to leave his mama behind for his wife's degree in Sussex, I was excited about the prospect of leaving North West London. It was a bit like a call to action and a guarantee that I would be valued regardless of what I did or accomplished.   

And one last thing: 'Aren't there only old people there?' Yes, but they usually have much more to teach you about life than young people. So come along to the south coast, you might just be pleasantly surprised!