CJC: A View From Here

May the Force Be With You

Bernie — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:21:53 +0000

Critics of the now-defunct long-form census delighted in supporting their argument for abolition by noting that in 2001, some twenty thousand Canadians listed “Jedi” as a write-in answer to the census religion question. I suppose some respondents did this to protest against the alleged intrusiveness of this question but I would bet that the majority did so as a joke, to “spoil the ballot”, as it were.

But as a huge fan of the first Star Wars trilogy, I kind of understand why some people could sincerely respond in this way, and not just geeks out of central casting who live in their parents’ basement in their secluded virtual universe. Just to be clear, I can readily separate reality from the inspired imagination of George Lucas and, for the record, I answered “Jewish” to the religion question. But who’s to say that the Force couldn’t stand in for a spiritual notion of higher-power cosmology and that the Dark Side isn’t a reasonable, if somewhat simplistic, metaphor for evil in the world?

The thing is, unlike most religions we recognize, not everybody gets to be a Jedi. Even though the Force is omnipresent, only those “strong in the Force” can undergo the rigorous training needed to control its ways and become a Jedi. In this regard, the Jedi may be more akin to a priestly caste than a collectivity of adherents.

The scene in Episode V where Jedi hopeful Luke Skywalker is undergoing such training under the tutelage of diminutive Jedi Master Yoda, is instructive. Yoda directs Luke to use the Force to extricate his fighter plane out of the swampy pond in which it is submerged. Not fully trained, Skywalker can’t pull it off, and complains to Yoda that, “You want the impossible”. Yoda, of course, then proceeds to accomplish the task himself. “I don’t believe it,” Luke says in astonishment. “That,” replies Yoda, “is why you fail.”

For those of us who responded as I did to the census religion question, I wonder about the connection between belief and success as a Jew. The answer appears to be: Not much. There is no set of abstract concepts that Jews need to believe as part of membership in the Tribe. In fact, the opposite is true: We often speak of Judaism as a religion of “deed” not “creed” and it seems clear that actions aimed at observing mitzvot and creating a world of justice and fairness are paramount over dogma and prescriptive belief. The standard line about “Two Jews, three opinions” extends to the great philosophical and existential questions about the nature of God, the meaning of life and our place in the universe.

We recently celebrated Shavuot and the centrality of the Torah covenant that the holiday has come to symbolize. The Torah tells us at Exodus XXIV:7 that Moses “took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people; and they said: ‘Kol asher dibeir Adonai na’aseh v’nishmah’” [‘all that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will hear’]. The “nishmah” is sometimes interpreted as “understand” or even “obey”, but never as “believe”. It may be that study can enhance understanding and thus inform the sanctity of the action, so that it is not done merely by rote, but it is the action in response to the Divine insight of Torah that binds us together and this we acknowledge first.

Perhaps the closest Judaism has to a canon of belief is Maimonides’ thirteen principles of faith. The first four deal with the nature of God: God exists, is one and unique, is incorporeal and eternal. We acknowledge the first two of these attributes in the Shema, perhaps the core prayer of Jewish liturgy. “Adonai echad” it ends, God is one, or perhaps, there is one God. Interestingly, though, just a short while later in the service the Amidah speaks of the God of each patriarch (and matriarchs in some liberal siddurs) individually: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and so on. Given that the oneness of God may be the touchstone of Jewish faith, scholars ask why the prayer sets out these separate connections. The answer I like is the symbolism in the prayer that although God is one, we each have a unique relationship with the one God, a relationship that we nurture, along with the relationships we develop among our fellow human beings, once again not through belief but through our actions.

Interestingly, George Lucas acknowledges that one of his inspirations for the Force was an observation by Canadian filmmaker and cinematographer Roman Kroitor: “Many people feel that in the contemplation of nature and in communication with other living things, they become aware of some kind of force, or something, behind this apparent mask which we see in front of us, and they call it God.”

For Jews, we achieve that connection with God by our actions in putting into effect the guidelines of moral behaviour we accepted millennia ago at Sinai. That is our force and may it always be with you.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress (evernon@cjc.ca)

Standing at Sinai

Bernie — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:43:11 +0000

I would venture to say that most people reflecting on the upcoming festival of Shavuot would identify it principally as “zeman matan torateinu,” the time of the giving of the Torah. It might even be suggested that God delivered the ancient Israelites from Egypt not simply to free them from the yoke of oppression but specifically to present them with the divine law.

There is, however, nothing explicit about this connection in the Torah, itself. The Torah, rather, refers to Shavuot, the second of the shalosh regalim, as an agricultural festival, the climax of sefirat ha-omer, marking the transition between the barley harvest and the start of the wheat-ripening season. The Torah refers to Shavuot as hag ha-katzir, the feast of the harvest, as hag hashavuot, the festival of weeks, and as Yom ha-bikurim, the day of first fruits, when farmers brought their produce to the temple as an offering.

It was only later in history that the rabbis did the calculations to determine that Moses’ descent from Sinai to reveal the holy law corresponded to the biblical date of Shavuot, which is set by counting seven weeks from the second day of Passover. Shavuot, already linked temporally to Pesach, was thus connected thematically and spiritually as well.

This helps explain why Shavuot is the only major holiday in the Jewish calendar that is not observed on a specifically identified date. Shavuot is considered as “atzeret”, that is, the completion, of Passover, the spiritual birth at Mount Sinai following the physical birth of the exodus. The Hebrews of the exodus were to discover that while they could live freely without gods, they could not live without God and his law, the powerful moral and ethical set of guidelines that to this day lie at the core of our way of life. The message was clear: Liberty without law and responsibility was chaos and anarchy.

In the words of one commentator, the giving of the Torah represents the first fruits of Israel’s freedom. The traditional offering of two loaves on the altar represents our material harvest; the two tablets represent our harvest of God’s gifts of law, faith, values and the life of the spirit.

A Midrash makes it clear that the law of God was intended specifically for humankind as a code of conduct and moral behaviour. It seemed that at one point the angels tried to keep this precious gift for themselves. Moses then went through each of the Ten Commandments and in turn the angels readily recognized that it did not apply to their heavenly realm.

As for having no other gods, Moses said, “Are you living among the non-Jews, who worship idols?” As for remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy, Moses asked “Do you angels do laborious work that you should have to be warned not to do it on Shabbat?” Similarly they had no parents to honour and needed no divine admonitions not to steal, kill or act immorally.

So the divine law was meant to bring order, civility and justice to our world. And just as the Haggadah impels us to imagine that we, ourselves, were liberated from Egypt, so, too, do we have the opportunity today to experience the revelation. By our own conduct and actions we can imagine that we were at Sinai.

We have just begun reading from the book of Bemidbar, Numbers, a book of the Torah that focuses on community, from the census taken at the outset to determine the size of the population, to the wanderings in the desert that forged a people with a common destiny, united in spirit and national purpose.

In this week’s parsha, Naso, we will read the beautiful priestly blessing that extends the guardianship, grace and peace of God to the people. Interestingly, the object of each blessing is “thee”, may the lord bless thee and keep thee and so on. From this we take two contrasting lessons: Every individual in the community is important and a valuable contributor to the greater whole. At the same time, the prerequisite for this blessing for Israel is unity, that all Israel is to be one people, the collective “thee.”

So let us take to heart the lessons of Shavuot and Naso. Let us conduct ourselves individually and as a community in ways that honour God’s law and that recognize both the inherent worth of every member and the essential obligation of communal unity.

In this way we can truly imagine ourselves to have stood at Sinai and make ourselves worthy of God’s blessings.

The Monopoly of Truth

Bernie — Thu, 12 May 2011 14:40:14 +0000

The killing of Osama Bin Laden provided the occasion for Barack Obama to make his first official visit to Ground Zero in New York. By laying a wreath there after the successful raid on the compound in Abbottabad, the President provided symbolic closure almost a decade after the horrific World Trade Center attacks. “Justice was done”, he intoned, although everyone surely knew that nothing done to Bin Laden could possibly be commensurate with the evil he unleashed on that bright, beautiful September morning. The death of the madman of Tora Bora will always be an unmatched bookend to the 3,000 stolen souls of 9/11.

What I found encouraging about the President’s pilgrimage was to see that some progress has been made recently in the grand scheme to repair the skyline of lower Manhattan with a fitting memorial to the attacks. On September 11, 2001, Mayor Rudy Guiliani vowed, “We will rebuild. We’re going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again.” In a letter to Guiliani shortly after the planes hit, CJC told the Mayor that, “We stand with you in this darkest hour and hope that the legendary resilience of New Yorkers will somehow rise to the fore in the days and weeks ahead in coping with this unprecedented tragedy.” It looks like New Yorkers have come to grips with the trauma over the years, and it’s good to see that the site of the unspeakable tragedy is no longer just Ground and Zero else.

The collapse of the World Trade towers was both a tactical objective and a strategic metaphor. Many in the West were shaken from their complacency and forced to confront some very harsh and uncomfortable truths about the threats not only to personal and collective safety, but also to a way of life and world-view. A commemorative phoenix would rise from the ashes of the Twin Towers it was promised if only to proclaim to the world, in the phrasing of 2001, that “the terrorists haven’t won”.

Much time was lost in the years after 9/11, it seems, as victims’ families struggled to conceive of a plan that was respectful to the unbidden gravesite of their lost loved ones and planners searched for an appropriate design to comfort a damaged and grieving nation. The grand renewal was ultimately entrusted to renowned architect Daniel Libeskind who said in discussing his plans, “We have to be able to enter this hallowed, sacred ground while creating a quiet, meditative and spiritual space.” When completed the project should provide a fitting tribute and represent a spirit of hope.

I think about this process as I ponder the future of a Holocaust monument that the Government of Canada will begin establishing in Ottawa in the coming months.

A private member’s bill, Bill C-442, mandates the government to provide land through the National Capital Commission to establish a Holocaust monument in Ottawa. Both houses of parliament unanimously passed the bill last month and it was among the pieces of legislation that received royal assent just before parliament dissolved.

Canada is virtually the only country among the western allies not to have a state-sponsored monument to the Holocaust and this odd anomaly will soon be rectified.

Appearing before the Senate, Canadian Jewish Congress said that the monument would accomplish a number of important objectives.

It will, we argued: provide a fitting tribute to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust; honour the tremendous sacrifice of Canada’s military role in World War II and its contribution to the defeat of Nazism; and preserve the sacred memory of the “righteous among the nations,” those heroic individuals who risked their lives to save Jews during the war.

A Holocaust monument in the national capital region will serve to remind all Canadians and tourists alike of the need to combat racism, antisemitism and discrimination in all of its manifestations. Such education is critical to promoting core Canadian values of respect for diversity, social justice and equality and to inculcating in our young people the importance of human rights and human dignity.

I hope that future visitors to both the Ground Zero restoration and the Ottawa Holocaust Memorial will reflect on these essential concepts and pledge themselves to work toward a world of peace and justice.

I also hope that they take a moment to think about what the British philosopher Bertrand Russell observed in his essay, “Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind”:

“Most of the greatest evil that man has inflicted upon man comes through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. To know the truth is more difficult than most men suppose, and to act with ruthless determination in the belief that truth is the monopoly of their party is to invite disaster.”

Eric Vernon is the Director of Government Relations and International Affairs for Canadian Jewish Congress in Ottawa (evernon@cjc.ca)

The Mystic Chords of Memory

Bernie — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:02:33 +0000

American presidents today officially take their oath of office on January 20th. The framers of the US constitution, however, originally fixed presidential inaugurations to take place on March 4th. With Election Day in early November, that was the timeframe they deemed necessary in the late 18th century to determine the outcome, inform the winner and allow him to get to Washington, D.C.

As such, earlier last month we celebrated the sesquicentennial of the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, for my money the greatest US president to have ever served in the highest office in that land.

Of course, not everyone was enamoured of Lincoln’s victory. South Carolina regarded the election results as the last straw in a decades-long sectional struggle and led an exodus of southern states out of the Union. For Lincoln, then, the long gap between winning the election and officially becoming President meant something that no other president in US history has ever had to face: By March 1861, seven states had seceded and the country was on the brink of civil war. In fact, barely a month after the inauguration, Confederate forces bombarded the US position at Fort Sumter, South Carolina and the war was on.

The day after the November election, a newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina declared that, “The tea has been thrown overboard.” With this reference to one of the tipping points of the American Revolution, the paper attempted to clothe the South’s actions in the garb of patriotism, casting the South into the role as guardians of the true revolutionary spirit of 1776. The South, it was argued, was the true incarnation of American first principles which the urban, industrial North had betrayed.

Interestingly, Lincoln would make the same pitch to these historical ties, not to elevate the North to a superior position but to bind the wounds of the divided nation. The “fourscore and seven years ago” with which he began his 1863 Gettysburg Address took Americans back to 1776 and the founding of the great republic whose future was in grave jeopardy mid-way through the Civil War. In a few majestic lines, Lincoln hallowed the sacrifices of the dead on both sides of the pivotal battle and infused new meaning into the sacred trust of the American experiment of republican government and democratic rule.

Lincoln was a past master at fusing the ideological themes of the Declaration of Independence with the practical nature of American politics. He drank deeply of the Founding Fathers’ enlightenment perspective of infinite human progress and saw himself a steward of the bedrock of the American experiment, namely, the Constitution of an indissoluble union.

As such, in a wry comment to his Secretary he noted that his first necessity as civil war loomed was to prove that, “popular government was not an absurdity.” That this should have been necessary mere decades after the ratification of the Constitution reveals much about the North-South divide that dangerously widened in the first half of the nineteenth century and then breached altogether in 1861.
Nonetheless, Lincoln tried desperately to assuage the South’s overarching fears that his election signified the abolition of slavery and the collapse of the civilization constructed around their “peculiar institution”. Above all, his objective on the first day of his presidency was to forestall armed conflict.

In his extraordinary first Inaugural Address, Lincoln appealed for both peace and union, making an impassioned plea for a conciliatory end to the secession threat and the impending armed sectional conflict. In closing, he eloquently evoked the common sacrifices of the Revolutionary War throughout all of the American colonies as they broke free of British control and set the new country sailing on the uncharted waters of independent self-government. Speaking to those whom he still considered his Southern compatriots, Lincoln said:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

What are we to make today of this notion of “mystic chords of memory”? How does this fit into our understanding of the bigger picture of nationalism and the role of the State as an expression of self-determination or territorial collectivity?

We have witnessed in recent history the horrific consequences of excessive nationalism, often manifest on a scale of evil from xenophobia to genocide. Here in Canada, by contrast, we often wonder the opposite; that is, whether we have enough? We’re all generally proud of our nationality but are there mystic chords of memory that reverberate in our consciousness? And if they exist, are we doing a proper job of transmitting them to younger generations and new Canadians?

We tend to shep nachas from certain contemporary individuals like Terry Fox or Lester Pearson but our history is lost in the mists of time, poorly taught in our schools if at all. We qvell over Canada’s peacekeepers and troops and designate made-in-Canada programs like health care and multiculturalism as touchstones of our national pride. We make fun of what we perceive as the hyper-patriotism of the United States while elevating Tim Horton’s and hockey to symbols of our own national identity. The Vancouver Olympics seemed to create an instant cross-country bond but only fleetingly, it seems to me. Maybe in the end all of this is sufficient, or maybe our collective attachment is ultimately too tenuous for our own good.

In Israel, discussions continue among pundits and commentators of what “post-Zionist” Israeli society looks like. Are the foundational ties that used to bind, in fact, fraying? The mystic chords of Jewish memory may go back millennia but do those connected to the rebirth of the modern State of Israel continue to ring loudly? Although it sadly may not be something that will be answered anytime soon, the question has been asked, “Can Israel survive peace?” In other words, without the unifying force of external existential threats are there sufficient points of contact for a national collective consciousness in the Jewish homeland?

In pondering all of this, it may be a cautionary tale that ultimately Lincoln’s plea for unity fell on deaf ears. Several other Southern states seceded, formed the Confederate States of America and went to war for states’ rights and defense of their agrarian, slave-based way of life. As the soldiers themselves would quickly discover on the battlefield, it is exceedingly difficult to move an opposing force out of entrenched positions.

It’s also worth remembering that precisely a century after Lincoln’s first inauguration another hopeful American president spoke to the nation as his first task as Chief Executive and encouraged his fellow-citizens to intensify their connection with what it meant to be American. Appealing to them to be the current links in an enduring chain of history, he said:

“And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe – the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.” And so he implored Americans not to ask what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country.

I imagine the mystic chords of memory reverberated loudly in John F. Kennedy’s ears that day in 1961 but, like Lincoln, he too would later fall to the bullets of the false revenge.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress (evernon@cjc.ca)

The Forgotten Exodus

Bernie — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:07:30 +0000

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie Amadeus where the composer Salieri plays passages from his oeuvre on a piano to a student who stares blankly at every note. Salieri then plays the opening of his rival Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and the student’s face lights up in full recognition. “Of course,” Salieri wearily acknowledges.

I think of Salieri’s rueful exercise when I ponder the issue of Jewish exiles from Arab lands. Playing the part of Mozart are the Palestinians, with whose refugee claims most Canadians are likely familiar. In the role of Salieri are some 900,000 Jews who, unbeknownst to most Canadians, were stripped of their property and expelled or fled from countries throughout the Arab world in which they had lived for generations.

The Jews’ long sojourn in Muslim lands included periods of prosperity, marked by Jewish advances in medicine, business, culture, philosophy and religious study. Often, however, the Jews were subjected to punishing taxes, forced into ghetto-like quarters and relegated to the lower levels of socio-economic strata.

In the aftermath of Israel’s 1948 War for Independence, through the 1960s and beyond, hundreds of thousands of Jews were driven from their homes in these countries and all their property was appropriated. In 1945, there were approximately 900,000 Jews living in communities throughout the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than 8,000. Some Arab states, such as Libya, are completely judenrein; in others, there are only a few hundred elderly Jews left. During their concerted effort to force the Jews to flee, the Arab states uprooted and destroyed 2,000 years of Jewish life in the region.

In 1950, for example, the Iraqi government revoked the Jews’ citizenship and froze all Jewish assets. There were pogroms against the Jewish community of Iraq and public hangings of Jews. While Israel rescued most Iraqi Jews at this time, the remaining few thousand experienced economic deprivation, arrests, and harassment and many tried escaping in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, this ancient Jewish community, which in 1948 numbered 90,000, has only a very few, mostly elderly, Jews left.

In Egypt the message was just as clear: It would be better for Jews to abandon their property and to leave Egypt as soon as possible. Between November 1956 and June 1957, more than 22,200 Jews left Egypt, and more than 13,500 Egyptian Jews arrived in Israel by October 1957. Few Jews remain in Egypt today.

Similar scenarios played out in Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and Syria where ransoms were often paid to secure releases. It is estimated that those who fled throughout the Arab world left behind property and assets worth up to $2.5 billion.

Although some of the Jewish refugees resettled in Canada, Australia, France, the United States and South America, the majority turned to Israel. Some literally fled on foot, while others were rescued by Israel in airlifts like “Operation Magic Carpet,” which brought 45,000 Yemeni Jews to Israel in 1949. Israel, a newborn state at the time, accepted these refugees and absorbed them into Israeli society.

Israel today seeks no “right of return” of the Jews to their erstwhile Arab homelands. Their plight must, however, become an important factor in refugee discussions around any Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.

At a Montreal “Forgotten Exodus” conference in 2002, well-known human rights activist and Member of Parliament (later Minister of Justice) Irwin Cotler stated that, “We are speaking about returning the Jews to the narrative of Middle East history from which they have been expunged. The appreciation that there were Jewish refugees, as well as Arab refugees, and indeed that the Jewish refugees were a result of state-sanctioned discrimination against Jews in Arab lands is important … for justice and for peace and for reconciliation.”

Canadian Jewish Congress is a member of the international coalition called Justice for Jews from Arab Countries which is striving to achieve exactly what Mr. Cotler described. The exodus of Jews from Arabs countries must no longer be forgotten.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress (evernon@cjc.ca)

“A god who shall go before us”

Bernie — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:39:42 +0000

A great line making the Internet rounds has an Israeli saying: “Egyptian protesters-please don’t damage the pyramids; we will not rebuild.” Indeed, watching the recent tumultuous events in Egypt unfold, one can’t help but recall our own historic liberation from an earlier “Pharaoh” and the freedom we gained on leaving that country as the first step to people- and nationhood.

Interestingly, we have by coincidence been reading from the book of Shemoth-Exodus as the Tahrir Square uprising unfolded. As the Torah picks up the narrative this week in parsha Ki Thissa we will read the famous story of the building of the golden calf, “…a god who shall go before us” as the people demanded. Many readers of this fateful episode recoil at the actions of the recently-freed slaves and ask, “How could they have done such a thing?” I would suggest a more realistic question is, “How could we have expected anything more from them?”

Let me explain.

The ancient historian Heraclitus observed that, “Change is the only thing that’s permanent.” That may be true, but change can often come at a cost, depending on the capacity of the society to absorb the shifts and pressures that change can bring and the pace of that change.

In our age, technology is the spear-point of change, particularly in how we view the world and our place in it. In 1805, news of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, a naval battle that changed the course of history, took six weeks to arrive in North America. Today, we watch momentous events from around the world in real time. We’ve gone from land-lines to cell phones, from typewriters to laptops, all in an historical blink of time and new apps and features seem to come at us every day. How many of us have lamented that our latest electronic device seems obsolete by the time we get it home from the store?

Please understand, this is not a nostalgic lament for the “good ol’ days” by a Luddite who resists the latest gizmos (although, full disclosure, I do). Rather, it is an acknowledgement that change is happening on an unprecedented scale in our lifetime and the profound impact this is having on our society is not fully understood. We get glimpses of it, like when commentators point out the irony of social media actually producing less meaningful communication and more anomie and structural breakdown. But where we’re headed is uncharted water as we, in our own way, become enslaved to technology,140 characters at a time.

Interesting, then, that last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of an extraordinary book called Future Shock, in which Alvin Toffler speculated on the effects of the acceleration of change on human society. Toffler was aware of the phenomenon of “culture shock”, the condition experienced by travelers newly-immersed in a foreign culture in which the familiar institutions and psychological cues which help an individual to function in society are suddenly withdrawn and replaced by new ones that are strange or incomprehensible.

Toffler hypothesized that modern society was beginning to suffer from an analogous psychic condition which resulted from too much change within a culture in too little time. He called this condition “future shock” and defined it as “the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future.”

Toffler argued that the dislocating effects of future shock were doubly powerful because, unlike our overseas traveler, societies being pummeled by the accelerating rate of change over a short period of time have no comforting familiar environment to which they can safely return.

Back in 1970, Toffler speculated that the jarring impact of too-rapid change would profoundly affect the maintenance of faith in whatever had customarily provided structure and a sense of belonging, security and enrichment in society. Under the relentless pressure of accelerated change, in a world suddenly more complex and confusing, our faith in existing belief systems, especially religious ones, would be put to their most extreme test. He was not sanguine about how those systems would cope or whether old solutions would continue to be meaningful and relevant in a changing world.

As Jews, we have survived over the millennia against daunting challenges at least in part because the changes to the world order did not shake the foundational values and precepts of Torah. Over the centuries, Judaism has proven adaptable even as our traditional moral standards have become entrenched throughout much of the world as the Judeo-Christian ethic. Notwithstanding the ongoing concern today about nurturing communal identification and continuity of affiliation, for most of us these moral first principles provide at least some buffer against the future shock of contemporary society and the swiftly changing social patterns and attitudes we are experiencing.

Imagine if you will, however, the trauma of an earlier, more inchoate Jewish society which found itself unwillingly in the throes of Toffler’s worst-case scenario: Culture shock exponentially intensified by simultaneous future shock. Think about such a group with no strong corporate identity suddenly thrust into a terrifyingly hostile environment, stripped bare of all physical and psychological cues and structures and then, in the midst of all of this upheaval virtually compelled to replace their established patterns and mores with a set of new ones which would ultimately revolutionize human history. For the Israelites at Sinai, what have become comforting traditions for many of us were radically innovative concepts which, far from providing shelter from the psychic storm, drastically increased the disorientation crisis triggered by the Exodus.

Today, we rightly regard the Exodus from Egypt as the pivotal turning-point in Jewish history, a miraculous episode in which God liberated an unorganized, enslaved people from the mightiest empire of the age, launching the inexorable march to Jewish nationhood. Indeed, we celebrate the redemption from Egypt every single year and the Passover hagadah urges us to imagine that we, ourselves, we personally liberated.

This is important, because we often focus on the grand historical primacy of the Exodus and forget the fact that, at heart, it was a profound human saga. So it is in that context, and assuming we are talking about events that actually did occur, that I suggest we consider what actually happened to these people, the cumulative shocks to their collective system that hit them, as the story goes, in the space of a few weeks.
We can look back now and say that God freed the slaves to follow his word and strive for a higher purpose in pursuit of justice and righteousness. We can make the case that Shavuot has no fixed date other than seven weeks from the beginning of Passover because the giving of Torah imbues freedom with law and morality and thus completes the celebration of the Exodus.

But the Jews fleeing Egypt did so without clearly understanding the nature of their sudden release or their savior and the obligations attached to both. In his conversation with God, Moses argued that he needed to provide a name for his God to the Israelite slaves steeped in pagan culture and the worship of idols—identifiable things with names complete in time and space. He understood intuitively the paradox of the coming revolution: How can you appeal to the mind of a people when they are not ready?

The Midrash tells us that on their arrival in Egypt, Moses and Aaron were welcomed by the elders of the Israelite community, who declared themselves ready to follow them to the end. They set out for the Royal Palace but gradually, the closer they came, the elders changed their minds. With each step the group shrank so that on entering Pharaoh’s residence the two brothers stood alone. If the community elders had lost their courage and had such little faith in this unknown, unseen God what could one expect from the average member?

Essentially unconvinced, the slaves soon undergo a frenzied departure followed by the trauma of the near-disaster of Pharaoh’s chase. Wrenched from all that was familiar into a complete void, the Israelites actually clamour to return to the safety of their servitude. One can surmise that they were hungry and thirsty, but I would guess above all that they were fearful. I would imagine that they were afraid of freedom, afraid of the sudden absence of their well-regulated lives, afraid of not understanding their place in the hierarchy of daily existence.

And, really, who could blame them? They had nothing but an unknown prophet for a leader; provisional tents for dwelling and no set task other than to march into the desert wilderness toward an unknown goal.

To this culture shock is then added the future shock. Reeling from the trauma of the Exodus the children of Israel are presented with the kicker: a new and unprecedented set of ethical guidelines and standards of moral behaviour that ran counter to everything they had known in their lives. A working, inter-dependent covenant with a single, unseen, unnamed god who intervenes in human history? Laws prohibiting murder and adultery in a world steeped in violence and promiscuity? Religion a way of life, not merely worship? Far too much too absorb, in far too little time.

So with their one authority figure gone for an extended period of time–dead or not returning for all they knew–small wonder the people satisfied their most profound collective need under the pressure of multiple psychic shocks by violating perhaps the most difficult commandment for them to obey. They may have earlier pledged in unison that, “All the words that the Lord hath spoken we will do” but when the chips were down that proved impossible under the circumstances they had faced. They needed a god they could see, touch and name. Perhaps God knew something when he ultimately suspended the mountain over their heads to get their buy-in!

Forty years down the road, both the culture shock and the future shock had worn off. With the ex-slave cohort largely gone, the next generation of Israelites had been forged in the crucible of the wilderness into a unified social group, a cohesive community poised to enter Canaan and test their strength and the power of their God in battle. By that time, they were more than ready.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress (evernon@cjc.ca)

“TO SAVE A NATION”

Bernie — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:28:20 +0000

On January 17, 1945 Raoul Wallenberg was arrested by the Red Army in Budapest, Hungary and disappeared, his fate unknown, into the Soviet gulag. What he was doing in Budapest in the first place is a tale of selfless heroism and extraordinary courage and underscores why in 1985 Canada bestowed upon Wallenberg its first honorary Canadian citizenship.

In March, 1944 Hitler tired of the dilatory efforts of Hungarian leadership to eliminate the Jews of Hungary and dispatched the notorious overseer of the Final Solution, Adolph Eichmann, to finish the job. Mass deportations of Hungarian Jews to the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau soon began in earnest. In the face of this crisis, the United States and neutral Sweden agreed to a rescue mission of the Jews of Budapest, the last remaining large Jewish community in Europe. After careful consideration they ultimately determined that Raoul Wallenberg was the best man for the job. Wallenberg was the scion of a wealthy Swedish family—Swedish Rockefellers, according to one description— was well-educated, multilingual and with a career in banking and commerce on the Continent, well-versed in the workings of the Nazi bureaucracy. Granted freedom of action, Wallenberg eagerly accepted the challenge to go to Budapest to, in his words, “save a nation”.

Under cover of the bogus position of First Secretary of the Swedish legation, Wallenberg capitalized on his “diplomatic” status to work his magic. With ingenuity, guile and determination, and at tremendous risk to his personal safety, (Eichmann reportedly told him that “even diplomats can have accidents”) Wallenberg stood up on behalf of the Jews of Budapest to Eichmann and his successor and the minions of the Nazi bureaucracy.

Perhaps Wallenberg’s best-known initiative involved the “Schutzpass”, a protective passport that the Swedish legation had been issuing only sporadically prior to Wallenberg’s arrival. Although they had no legal basis, Wallenberg immediately grasped their potential. He redesigned the Schutzpass into a much more impressive, even formidable document, testifying that the bearer was under the protection of the Swedish Embassy. He issued them by the thousands and the bluff saved countless lives.

By the time the Red Army liberated the city, Wallenberg had saved some 100,000 Hungarian Jews. Unfortunately, the Soviets viewed Wallenberg’s humanitarian selflessness with suspicion, likely believing he was an American spy. They arrested Wallenberg on January 17th and the man who had so valiantly fought the first of the two worst tyrannies of the twentieth century immediately became a prisoner of the second.

The connections between Canada and Raoul Wallenberg are remarkably deep and wide. Perhaps the most personal link lies in those who survived the Holocaust thanks to Wallenberg’s direct efforts and then made Canada their adopted home after the war. In a larger sense, the values that Wallenberg lived by and exemplified resonate deeply with Canadians. His essential humanity, commitment to principle, profound sense of justice, courage and concern for others impelled him to leave the safety of Sweden to risk his life to save others from evil and tyranny.

In 2001, Canada gave concrete expression to this sentiment in declaring January 17th as Raoul Wallenberg Day, to “honour the courage, character and humanity of an exceptional individual.” Now ten years on, this has become a day for serious reflection across Canada on the critical importance of freedom, democracy, human rights, equality and, above all, the profound impact for positive change that a single person of integrity can make in the world.

On Monday, January 17th, as we mark the 66th anniversary of Wallenberg’s capture, it is well that we consider the shining example he provided in one of history’s darkest hours. It may be that Raoul Wallenberg not only rescued Jews but humankind itself.

Wallenberg was once called “an example of moral and physical courage which defies description”. That may be true but we must strive to honour Wallenberg’s legacy by emulating his actions and committing to living by his values. The world today desperately needs all of us to be a little like Raoul Wallenberg and step up for justice, freedom and equality. That is something we should all ponder on Raoul Wallenberg Day and, indeed, every day.

Eric Vernon is the Director of Government Relations and International Affairs for Canadian Jewish Congress in Ottawa (evernon@cjc.ca)

“The Madness of the Heart”

Bernie — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:38:07 +0000

The British scientist John Haldane once observed that, “…words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better.”

Political leaders, for good or ill, have long grasped this intuitively, perhaps no other régime in history better than Nazi Germany. To be sure, Hitler was a master manipulator of words. But the Nazis’ preternatural ability to harness the potency of visual imagery to touch the chords of emotion was central to their ascendancy to absolute power and the horrors they perpetrated. Chief among these totems was the swastika, the logo, if you will, of Nazi tyranny.

Decades after the War, the swastika can still inspire fear as it remains among the most visceral and repellant symbols of hate and evil. Contemporary hate crimes targeting the Jewish community often feature the daubing of swastikas precisely for this reason.

In recent years, Canadian law has acknowledged that crimes ranging from mischief to murder take on an additional dark element when motivated by hate or bias against identifiable groups.

It’s been over a decade, for instance, since Parliament changed the sentencing régime in Canada to allow hate-motivation to be considered an aggravating factor in sentencing to permit harsher penalties for such offences.

It was always understood that hate is incompatible with the values of a democratic society and corrodes and undermines the very essence of that society. But the sentencing change reflected the truth that a spray-painted swastika on a Jewish day school was a different order of vandalism than, say, graffiti on the side of a store. Yes, both physically mar the property they deface, but, like all hate crimes, the former terrorizes the targeted community and imparts upon it a profound psychological impact, sending a chilling message to the victimized community that you are isolated, different and, ultimately, unwelcome.

Here in Canada, the Criminal Code sets out penalties and sanctions for the most serious types of conduct that we proscribe as a civilized society, including those based on hatred, what Lord Byron called “ the madness of the heart”. William Blackstone, the 18th-century English jurist whose seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England remains an important reference for understanding common law, noted that, “The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.”

In 2001, the legislation passed after 9/11 known as the Anti-Terrorism Act contained a provision to amend the Criminal Code making it an indictable offence to commit mischief in relation to a house of worship or cemetery, if the commission of this mischief was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate.

At the time Canadian Jewish Congress argued that the ambit of this protection was too narrow,
with far too much communal infrastructure left uncovered. In the intervening years we have been proven right. The unconscionable fire-bombings of two Jewish day schools and attacks against Muslim schools, for example, were not subject to these provisions. Nor was the community centre on the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg reserve in Maniwaki, Quebec when it was covered in swastikas and white power slogans.

The House of Commons is now considering a Private Member’s Bill, C-451, that would rectify this situation. First tabled by Bloc Québécois MP Carole Freeman, and now standing in the name of its current sponsor, Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, the legislation extends the coverage of the mischief section aimed at protecting vulnerable minority communities identified on the basis of colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, language or sexual orientation. It further criminalizes bigotry-motivated attacks against their schools, community centres and the buildings and facilities they principally use which fulfill an administrative, social, cultural, educational or sports function.

Bill C-451 represents an important arrow in the quiver of the state to protect vulnerable minorities. We will look for all-party support of this legislation when the Bill returns for second reading consideration. Its passage will send a critical message that Canada will not tolerate hate crimes deliberately aimed at the infrastructure of vulnerable minorities; crimes that traumatize the target community well beyond the immediate users of a particular building and well after the soap and brushes have washed away the swastikas.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress (evernon@cjc.ca)

The Arc of the Moral Universe

Bernie — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:41:16 +0000

Like most holidays on the Jewish calendar, Hanukkah is never on time. This year, for instance, it is “early” but even coming at the beginning of December we can still use the light.

The Chassidic masters taught: You cannot dispel darkness with a stick, you must light a candle.

It’s also been aptly noted that the benefit of the candle is twofold: It brings light to the person who lit the candle while helping someone nearby, without diminishing its light. A candle loses nothing even by lighting another candle.

Candles, of course, feature prominently in Jewish festive celebrations. We welcome in Shabbat with candles every Friday night, and bid it goodbye with the braided candle of Havdallah.

But lighting the candles at Hanukkah has a special resonance, probably up there with conducting a Passover seder as the most popular holiday activity of the Jewish annual cycle.

The Talmud tells of competing schools of thought regarding the lighting of candles at Hanukkah. One school, seeking to mirror the diminishing light of the legendary oil cruse after a week and a day, suggested starting with eight candles and removing one each day. The other school countered that the true miracle of Hanukkah lay in adding light to the world and advocated beginning with one candle and ending with eight.

We know how this debate concluded. We are imbued with the wonderful symbolism of the lighting of successive candles on this joyous festival and our thoughts often turn at this time to how we, in our own lives, can add light to the world.

You often hear people speak of “light at the end of the tunnel” as the optimistic metaphorical end of a long process or a difficult time they are experiencing. Personally, at these times of uncertainty or frustration, especially when I am not sure that the light in the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train, I am buoyed by the hopeful message of the following passage:

“Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a Creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

The concept of the arc of the moral universe being long but bending toward justice actually derives from the writings of Theodore Parker, a transcendentalist and Unitarian minister, who lived from 1810-1860. But I don’t think you will be surprised to learn that the quote above is from a speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1967.

King loved the image of the bending arc of morality seeking justice. In fact, he first used it in a speech in 1961, when the civil rights movement in the United States was just on the cusp of the tumultuous and, despite Dr. King’s signature approach, often violent, bloody and lethal decade that would unfold before it. But by 1967, the movement had witnessed Selma and Montgomery; Detroit and Watts; the murders of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney and the assassination of Medgar Evers.

And not knowing that in just a matter of mere months his own name would be added to the list of those cut down for the cause, King could have rightly looked around and considered the slow, sometimes infinitesimal gains made for racial equality and wondered if there would ever in fact come a time when American society would judge people not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

And yet, in spite of the glacial pace of the civil rights movement, King remained optimistic, sustained in his effort by a firm belief that morality and justice would one day intersect and American society would finally experience the necessary transformative social change for true racial equality.

As Jews we understand this intuitively. That we have survived and flourished over millennia of history is all the more remarkable given the litany of hate, persecution and attempted annihilation we have faced throughout time, all because of who we are.

We think about this especially at Hanukkah. As discouraging as the manifestations of both historical and contemporary antisemitism may be, the light of the candles at this season braces and inspires us to resist oppression, fight for human rights and proudly assert our identity.

So as you load up your hanukkiyah and set flame to wick, you will of course be celebrating the stunning victory of the Maccabees for religious freedom and our right to live as Jews.

You will of course be commemorating the redemption of the temple and the astounding miracle of the burning oil.

But more than that, as you light the bright festive candles of Hanukkah, you will be illuminating the arc of the moral universe and guiding it as it bends its way toward justice.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress

The Courage to Continue

Bernie — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:02:32 +0000

Many professional athletes these days seek the help of sports psychologists to achieve elite levels of success in their field. One popular technique they employ is visualization: see the success in the mind’s eye and translate that positive image to specific action. I imagine this would be a productive confidence-building approach to plays that produce instant results like making a10-foot putt, kicking a field goal or landing a triple Axel.
Thinking about this notion of instant gratification reminded me of a story about Thomas Edison. Edison, of course, is one of history’s greatest inventors, but his inventions did not always come easily. The light bulb, for example, took him 2,000 tries before it actually worked. A reporter once asked him how it felt to fail so many times before ultimately succeeding. “Ah,” Edison said, “But I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000 step process.”

Edison understood that there are many kinds of endeavour that don’t yield obvious and immediate feedback. While having some standard or criteria to gauge long-term success is important, all of the instant positive-imaging in the world will not help when results are measured incrementally over extended periods of time. There are times when you need to take the long view and keep your eyes on the prize with patience most assuredly a virtue.

Gandhi once observed that, “It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.”

In Jewish tradition, this notion is summed up more succinctly by the wisdom of Rabbi Tarfon who said in Pirke Avot that, “It is not our duty to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it.”

Planting trees from which you might not enjoy the shade is a well-understood concept to those involved in advocacy or lobbying. On occasion, something you push for sees the light of day in short order, but typically it takes time and consistent effort to achieve success. There are generally no quick fixes.

Advocacy is not like manufacturing widgets, where production and sales bottom lines dictate success or failure. Instead, it is all about communication and relationship-building, with key interlocutors especially in government and the public service. Today’s backbencher may well be tomorrow’s parliamentary secretary and that parliamentary secretary could well be next year’s cabinet minister. Today’s opposition shadow critic may one day be on the front bench of a new government. The time invested in creating and nurturing those relationships is usually what helps carry the day, even if that day is far down the road from where you began.

Brick by brick the wall is eventually built. Giving up at the first sign of resistance or apathy toward your objectives is not an option.

To use another sports metaphor, you may not score a touchdown every time you undertake an initiative or promote a particular cause, but you may move the yardsticks a little further down the field. These incremental, sometimes barely observable, steps forward often add up over time to get you where you want to be.

A great example of such “delayed success” is CJC’s effort to partner with the government to erect a memorial to Canada’s refusal in 1939 to land the vessel S.S. St. Louis, as the most visible manifestation of Canada’s “None is too Many” exclusionary immigration policy. After Canada’s denial of entry ended their quest for haven, the ship sailed back and many of the 900-plus Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Europe were swept up in the Holocaust.

CJC began lobbying for such a memorial several years ago, based on the notion that Canada needed to face up to its past injustices to move forward. Next January, this effort will at last come to fruition. CJC’s “Wheel of Conscience”-S.S. St. Louis Historical Monument, a magnificent sculpture by renowned designer Daniel Libeskind, will be unveiled in Pier 21, Canada’s Immigration Museum in Halifax as a fitting reminder of this dark chapter in Canadian history.

Not surprisingly, the Torah gives us guidance in the life lesson of delayed gratification and success. In this week’s parsha, Toledot, Jacob leaves his family and heads to the land of his uncle Laban to seek a wife. We know how this eventually ends: Jacob winds up toiling for fourteen years until he finally gets want he wants, marriage to Rachel. Time, patience and hard work, indeed.

I have quoted a couple of heavyweight historical figures already so why not end with another for inspiration? “Success is not final, failure is not fatal,” Winston Churchill said, “It is the courage to continue that counts.”
My advice? Be of good courage.

BY: Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs, Canadian Jewish Congress