Local View vs. News View

Today I read an article about an opinion that is not usually expressed in today's world.  It was about a Muslim doctor expressing her positive thoughts on Israel.  She said that, if it were not for Israel, she would not have had a chance to be where she is today.  Of course, then the author's Jewish mother stated that she wanted to live in an exclusively Jewish community, saying that would make her feel safer.  If you look at most mainstream news sources reporting of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, you will find that almost all of them (excluding FOX news) are anti-Israel.  Yet here is a member of the Muslim side of the conflict stating that Israel is great and gave her all this opportunity.  Sometimes it feels like (and this applies to every single news outlet) the news is just reporting exactly what it wants us to hear.  In today's world, it is hard to know who is telling the truth and who is lying, and often people get very caught up in the cloud of confusion.  It is important for us to remember to look into every single possible angle in a conflict and not just assume something to be true if we hear it.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-israel-is-giving-me-the-voice-of-an-arab-doctor/

Hillel vs. Shamay

Today in Jewish History, we learned about two famous rabbis, Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shamay.  One particular story was about a cynic who went up to each of them and said "If you can teach me the entirety of the Torah while I stand on one foot I'll convert."  Shamay has a fairly normal reaction and tells him to get out.  Hillel, however, says "Don't treat others as you wouldn't have them treat you."  Now, while Shamay's reaction was perfectly reasonable, I think we can all learn something from Hillel's reaction.  When someone is being very rude and he had every right to be rude back, he used it as a teaching opportunity.  Sometimes I believe that we need to do this more often, take a moment that seems very impossible to be productive in and turn it around.  By doing so, we can not only possibly gain new members of Judaism, but also maybe de-alienate other religions who may feel isolated.  If every rabbi and every Jew acted like Hillel, Judaism may be a bit bigger today.  It is also important to just be nice to other people simply because that's human decency, and if you don't give any respect, you can't expect to get any in return.  The world owes you nothing until you try to help it.

Udi Aloni vs. Benjamin Netanyahu

Today I read an article about an Israeli film maker and his statements about Israel's government.  Director Udi Aloni won the top audience awards in Berlin for his recent movie (congratulations to him), but just before winning the award, footage surfaced of him making statements about Israel's government, including calling it "fascist" and also urging Germany to stop sending military aid.  Now, while he is allowed to have his own opinion, the fact that his movie received money from the government would suggest that he supports the government, and yet these statements say the exact opposite.  If he does not like the government, he should not take money from them.  He is, in a sense, slapping the hand that feeds him.  A recent example of refusing someone's support if you don't agree with them has to do with who else but Donald Trump.  Recently, David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, endorsed Trump and suggested that other members of the KKK vote for Trump.  When asked, Trump didn't agree with Duke, but he didn't reject him either.  If you do not agree with what someone is saying or someone's message, don't take support from them.  Don't just take because you need something, take if you are okay with what the giver endorses.

The Story Of The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God

We took a break for two weeks from Jewish History class, and our assignment over the break was to read three stories by the Israeli author Edgar Keret.  One of the stories I read by him, and the title story of one of his books, was called The Story Of The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God.  The story follows two characters.  One of them is a bus driver who never lets anyone on who is late.  It's not because he's mean, just because if he wastes 30 seconds of each rider's time, and there are 10 riders, they lose a total of 5 minutes, and you can not afford to lose that much time (according to him).  The other character is a chef named Eddie, who has an odd disease which causes him to oversleep by ten minutes no matter what, which causes him to always be late for things; his job, appointments, meetings, etc.  So one day in the restaurant, Eddie meets a nice girl, who makes him very happy.  So they make plans to meet at the aquarium the next day at 5 pm.  Eddie takes many precautions to ensure he's on time, setting three different alarm clocks and turning the TV on with the volume all the way up, but he still falls asleep and wakes up ten minutes late.  He gets ready as quickly as possible and sprints to the bus.  He gets there just late, and the bus driver is going to not let him on, until the driver remembers that he used to want to be God, and that God is merciful to all of his creations.  So the driver lets him on, and Eddie gets there on time, but the girl stands him up.  So as Eddie walks back to the bus, he takes his time due to his aching muscles, but the driver waits for him.

I believe that this story has very large connections to real life.  This story tells the classic conflict of idealism and pragmatism, the same struggle Javert faces in Les Miserables before jumping to his death.  Though it is good in life and in Judaism to have strong set ideals, sometimes it is important for us to adapt, to be flexible based on the situation.  This is the conflict of interest faced by every single entity, person, country, religion, etc. that exists in the world.  The religion of Judaism sometimes has to decide whether it wants to be very religious, or be practical based on the situation that is faced in the world at that time.  In life, it is important for us to sometimes be like the bus driver.  Stubborn, yet flexible.  What it means is that it is important to be able to adapt to various realities that approach us.

Today in Jewish history, we discussed the issue of how to address the "problem" (depending on your view of the situation) of Jews not marrying within the faith.  To some more orthodox Jews, it seems as if this is very important.  To many reform Jews, however, this issue does not affect us as Jews very much.  In my opinion, it is important to take an already existing standpoint.  This standpoint is that we shouldn't advocate intermarriage, but if someone is intermarried, we shouldn't discriminate against them.  This way, we still enforce our beliefs as enforced in the Torah, but also do not keep people out of Judaism just because of their personal choices.  As far as "middle ground" goes, this is pretty much the perfect compromise.

Today I read an article for Jewish History class about how many Rabbis in America often feel that they have to avoid talking about Israel, due to trying to avoid confrontation from some of the members of their congregations who oppose their views.  One of the suggestions of the rabbi was to not let the louder members of the congregation represent all of the congregation, and not to let them force the rabbis not to talk about it.  I started to think about how this correlates to the real world, in which people who are louder often get to force their opinion onto those people who do not have as strong of opinions.  It's like how the whole world thinks that all Americans are idiots.  It's not that we're all idiots, just that our idiots are much louder than our reasonable and smart people.  It is important that we not let those who are louder than us suppress us and make us feel like our viewpoints are worse than theirs.  We have to remember this in the synagogue, in our classrooms, and in the rest of our lives as well.

Today in Jewish History, we talked about how we, as reform Jews, make our decisions.  Most reform Jews today would likely say that they made their decisions based on reason.  However, if you went back just a little bit over 200 years, most reform Jews would probably say they made their decisions based on religion.  Though today it makes sense to go by reason, 70 years ago the Nazis were led to the Holocaust by reason.  Granted, they were stupid reasons, but to them, that was good reason!  Is it okay to say that, if you think something through, and to you it seems reasonable, then you should definitely do it?
In my opinion, it is important to have a steady balance of reason and religion.  If a decision is more logical, than reason should be used for that situation.  If the choice plays more into religion, then religion should be used.  We should also study Torah regularly in order to understand what choices we should make in a religious situation.  As reform Jews, we do sometimes forget that we need to take part in our religious beliefs, this coming from someone who does not go to services more than once a month on average.  Sometimes, we just need to take Judaism a little more seriously, and if we do that, we can achieve a great balance between reason and religion.