Love the framing, and the sentiment. And I share your faith - yet I fear that too much faith can leave us imagining the storm will pass and calm waters will follow, to borrow your metaphor. Given the obvious need to chart a path out of this current mess, what beyond faith is necessary to affect system wide change to prevent us from returning to the same dire straits?
I think you've asked the hardest and most important question. I don't know that I have any answers, but my hope is to use this space to highlight the leaders working to effect systems changes, share some lessons learned from our attempts to try and do good, and offer some thoughts on what we might (collectively and individually) be able to do practically to help accelerate a brighter future.
This was beautifully written and very meaningful to me, an American. I appreciate your linking to Frederick Douglass's speech--a man born into slavery, the "Great Compromise" that underlies our countries' founding. Israel, too, made many compromises when she was founded and after the war of 1967. She will emerge stronger and more united, but as you write so powerfully--it remains a possibility.
Thanks for this great post, Daniel. It was valuable to read it on July 4th, in part for prompting me to read Frederick Douglass's speech, which was indeed stirring and powerful.
Though it was also a reminder of the blinders even of great social and political visionaries. I say this because of this painfully supersessionist passage in the speech:
"It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have 'Abraham to our father,' when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country today? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout, 'We have Washington to ‘our father.' Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is. "
From the research I've been doing in this period, this isn't surprising. It was just de rigeur to slander Judaism for these and related 'pharisaic' sins. It's still depressing though.
Love the framing, and the sentiment. And I share your faith - yet I fear that too much faith can leave us imagining the storm will pass and calm waters will follow, to borrow your metaphor. Given the obvious need to chart a path out of this current mess, what beyond faith is necessary to affect system wide change to prevent us from returning to the same dire straits?
I think you've asked the hardest and most important question. I don't know that I have any answers, but my hope is to use this space to highlight the leaders working to effect systems changes, share some lessons learned from our attempts to try and do good, and offer some thoughts on what we might (collectively and individually) be able to do practically to help accelerate a brighter future.
This was beautifully written and very meaningful to me, an American. I appreciate your linking to Frederick Douglass's speech--a man born into slavery, the "Great Compromise" that underlies our countries' founding. Israel, too, made many compromises when she was founded and after the war of 1967. She will emerge stronger and more united, but as you write so powerfully--it remains a possibility.
Thanks for this great post, Daniel. It was valuable to read it on July 4th, in part for prompting me to read Frederick Douglass's speech, which was indeed stirring and powerful.
Though it was also a reminder of the blinders even of great social and political visionaries. I say this because of this painfully supersessionist passage in the speech:
"It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have 'Abraham to our father,' when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country today? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout, 'We have Washington to ‘our father.' Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is. "
From the research I've been doing in this period, this isn't surprising. It was just de rigeur to slander Judaism for these and related 'pharisaic' sins. It's still depressing though.