I worry whether my children will grow up in a culture so sterilized and digitized that they will miss out on true human bonds. Maureen Dowd just added to my worries with acute observations about the increasing superficiality of romantic comedies. People no longer fall in love or learn to love as they did in earlier movies. Read the column to join me in my worries.
A lot of Israeli and Jewish friends often ask me about Palestinian textbooks and whether they teach about peace and co-existence. During the early part of the Abbas-Olmert administrations, I recall that Prime Minister Olmert mentioned to me that the Abbas Administration had done a remarkable job on this front, in contrast to many prior Palestinian Ministries of Education. It was also around this time that OneVoice did an incredible job working in partnership with both the Israeli and Palestinian Ministries of Education to launch the Imagine 2018 essay contest for kids ages 13-17, to ask them to visualize what would their lives look like in 2018 if their countries entered into a peace agreement and implemented it in the coming years.
Alas, Palestinians have regressed and apparently so have Israelis. An interesting article in Ha’aretz points out that the Israeli Ministry of Education under Prime Minister Netanyahu is objecting to inclusion of the Oslo negotiations and peace treaty in its texts, even though it does mention more recent events, like the peace agreement with Jordan.
In a prior blog entry here, I shared an insight from Linda Gallanter, that your goal when raising children should be to give them purpose, rather than for them to be "happy." If they find purpose, they will find happiness. If you obsess with their immediate happiness as a goal, they may just end up spoiled or feeling self-entitled.
But in reading an excellent article from Andrea Elliot, The Jihadist Next Door, and in remembering some concepts from a novel (OD&H) I started trying to write a decade ago but never finished, one should remember that "purpose" is a double-edged sword. A lot of the most dangerous people find purpose alright - to destroy or vanquish or eliminate.
So the caveat should be that Purpose needs to be Positive. And since Positive is a normative word whose definition may be in the eye of the beholder (ie, for Omar Hammami, killing infidels in Somalia is a Positive act), I would define Positive as rooted in TOLERANCE AND RESPECT TOWARDS OTHER HUMAN BEINGS - or the golden rule of doing onto others as you would want to be done on to you.
Elliot’s article also highlights that the same attributes of leaders in society - being smart, curious, introspective, analytical, charismatic, determined - can be dangerous if not rooted in tolerance.
Ironically, Omar Hammami was brought up by a Muslim Dad and Christian Mom. So you would think that environment can foster diversity and respect (as it has in countless of PeaceWorks and OneVoice team members I have met over the years whose parents come from different backgrounds. Alas, in this case, the teachings that Hammami got from Islam and from Christianity were exclusionary and rooted in intolerance. He would be warned by his Mom’s family and church in Alabama that he would go to hell unless he accepted Christianity. And he would be warned by his Father’s family in Syria that he would be cursed if he didn’t accept Islam. Repressive religious upbringings can boomerang and catch up with your offspring.
Elliot’s article also points how "a constant in Hammami’s life [is] his striving for another place and purpose."
The zeal to transcend one’s life in this world - the search for purpose and posterity - can be the greatest inspiration for good or evil.
I just re-read an essay I wrote (as therapy, I guess) back on September 11, 2001 and a couple days after, trying to capture the thoughts and feelings of New Yorkers after the World Trade Center terrorist attack.
It is worth remembering what the city and its people went through.
It is worth honoring the heroes and the fallen.
And it is worth reflecting on how we can deny a victory to the terrorists, back then and today, not just by apprehending them, but also by the lives we lead and how we lead them.
The original essay, Etiquette and Resilience in the Face of Calamity, is in the PeaceWorks Foods archives. A copy is pasted below.
Modern technology and education may not encourage creativity and imagination in children as much as the past. Reading books makes you imagine your own characters, and blocks of wood - or pieces of nature - can prompt a child to imagine its toys. But tvs, xboxes, video games and pdas are less likely to stimulate the unknown, as they guide you through a pre-created and pre-imagined world.
Here is an article from babycenter (an informative and valuable website for parents) that shares ideas on how to tap your child’s natural curiosity.
This video by a friend of my sister’s really touched me and intensified my appreciation of the need and beauty of loving and remembering my parents with every breath.
A troubling portrayal in the New York Review of Books by Peter Beinart of American Jewish leadership and Israeli society is a must reading.
At KIND, PeaceWorks, and OneVoice, almost by definition, I think our team members are motivated by the desire to make the world a better place, and the empowerment and joy comes with the journey.
And yet I found myself really intrigued to follow this video that breaks down these implicit assumptions and helps us all understand - what drives us, and how can we "manage" in the most motivating and empowering way?
And the priestess spoke again and said:
Speak to us of Reason and Passion.And he answered, saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon
which your reason and your judgment wage
war against your passion and your appetite.Would that I could be your peacemaker
in your soul, that I might turn the discord
and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.But how shall I, unless you yourselves be
also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?Your reason and your passion are the rudder
and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken,
you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill
in mid-seas.For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining;
and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns
to its own destruction.Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion,
that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason,
that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection,
and like the phoenix rise above it own ashes.I would have you consider your own judgement
and your appetite even as you would two
loved guests in your house.
Surely you wouldn’t honor one guest above the other;
for he who is more mindful of one loses
the love and the faith of both.Among the hills, when you sit in the cool
shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace
and serenity of distant fields and meadows
then let your heart say in silence,
"God rests in reason".And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind
shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning
proclaim the majesty of the sky, then let your heart
say in awe, "God moves in passion."And since you are a breath in God’s sphere,
and a leaf in God’s forest, you too
should rest in reason and move in passion.–Gibran Khalil Gibran, The Prophet, on Reason and Passion
(thanks to Uncle Jorge and Sioma Waisburd for sharing this)
With extremism being particularly rampant among some religious followers who become increasingly zealous about their convictions and practices, and with the cartoonish tensions created by black and white contrasts set out by desensitized uber-capitalism vs. new age parsimoniousness, I was struck by the depth and timeliness of these contrasting messages:
With regard to all human traits, the middle of the road is the right path. For example: Do not be hot-tempered, easily angered. Nor, on the other hand, should you be unfeeling like a corpse. Rather, take the middle of the road: keep an even disposition, reserving your anger for occasions when it is truly warranted. Similarly, do not cultivate a desire for luxuries; keep your eye fixed only on genuine necessities. In giving to others, do not hold back what you can afford, but do not give so lavishly that you yourself will be impoverished. Avoid both hysterical gaiety and somber dejection, and instead be calmly joyful always, showing a cheerful countenance. Act similarly with regard to all the dispositions. This is the path followed by the wise.
- Maimonides, 12th Century
And
…this path, the one that avoids extremes, is called the ‘path of God,’ and Abraham taught his descendants to follow it. Whoever follows it gains goodness and blessing, as it is said, "For I have known him, that he might command his children and those who follow him to keep the Lord’s path, doing justice and right, that the Lord may fulfill for Abraham the divine purpose (Genesis 18.19)."
