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Fighting society’s disintegration is a group effort. Just ask Moses.
This story was originally published on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — This summer, in the middle of a 15-hour drive from Michigan to New Jersey, I stopped to buy two old wooden doors from a salvage shop in Cleveland. I found the seller, a kind, middle-aged dad whom I’ll call Jim, on Facebook. Jim renovates properties and has amassed a collection of old doors rescued from various job sites. His “shop” was a covered section of his suburban yard.
Jim had exactly what I was looking for: two matching solid-wood five panels, unpainted, 24 inches wide. When we pulled them out into the sunlight to look them over, Jim struck up a conversation.
“So, what do you guys do?”
“My wife and I are clergy,” I told him. “She works at a congregation and I work in education.”
“Oh nice,” Jim said. “What kind of congregation?”
“Well, a synagogue. We’re both rabbis.”
I shot my kids a look to see if they were monitoring the conversation.
“Oh, you’re Jewish. My favorite person is Jewish!”
“Really?” I said, with false curiosity and a hunch about what was coming next.
“Yeah, Jesus Christ! You know, there’s a Jewish cemetery across the way from our house. Sometimes I do some tree work over there. I tell my friends that Jewish cemetery is proof the Bible is true.”
He paused for a second to make sure I was listening. I nodded for him to continue.
“You see, the Bible says that if God’s chosen people don’t follow God’s ways, they would be kicked out of their land and scattered all over the earth,” Jim said. “The fact that there are Jews buried in a cemetery in Cleveland, so far away from their homeland, means that the Jews weren’t following God’s ways.”
At this point, I was strapping the doors to the rack on my car and all I could manage in response was, “That’s one way to look at it.”
The theology Jim espoused isn’t only, or even primarily, a Christian belief. Jews throughout history have believed that being scattered around the world was punishment from God for not following in God’s ways. We say it in the liturgy, and it appears in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo: “If you fail to observe faithfully all the terms of this teaching in this book … the Lord will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other.”
When I was a young rabbi, I completely dismissed the idea that Jews would be punished because of our lackluster compliance with Jewish tradition. But the more I thought about this idea — or more accurately, this threat — that bad things will happen if we don’t behave properly, the more empathy I felt for what Moses and God were trying to teach. Moses and God were concerned about what would happen to the Israelites if they behaved poorly as a collective. If enough people engage in selfish behavior, society will disintegrate. To avoid this, Moses and God browbeat the people with two long lists: threats if they don’t behave, and blessings if they do.
Today, we face the same problem Moses faced — how to shape the collective behavior of a society — only the stakes are much higher. Put simply, there are many more humans using many more technologies that have much greater impact. Our collective behavior is having enormous consequences for the planet, leading geologists to label our era the anthropocene, the human epoch.
And yet, despite the incredible human accomplishments over the last two millennia, we don’t have many more tools than Moses had to shape collective behavior. We have democratic governance, but the track record of democracies is lackluster in this regard, with some so-called eco-authoritarians now arguing that democracy ought to be set aside to address climate change. We have mass social movements, but anyone who has spent time working within them (I count myself in this category) knows how difficult it is to actually galvanize a collective movement that shapes behavior at the societal level.
My father used to say, “People will never change their behavior unless they are forced to.” By people, he meant society. And by forced to, he meant that the negative consequences are so drastic there is no choice but to change. Was he right? Is humanity incapable of anticipating a societal-level threat and changing our behavior to avoid the abyss?
This is a great spiritual challenge of our generation. We live in an era in which we are likely, just by going about our lives, to cause planetary damage. Will we develop new ways to shape collective behavior for the better before it is too late?
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The post Fighting society’s disintegration is a group effort. Just ask Moses. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Terrorist Responsible for Death of 21 Soldiers Eliminated
An Israeli F-35I “Adir” fighter jet. Photo: IDF
i24 News – Khalil Abd al-Nasser Mohammed Khatib, the terrorist who commanded the terrorist cell that killed 21 soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip on January 22, 2024, was killed by an Israeli airstrike, the IDF said on Sunday.
In a joint operation between the military and the Shin Bet security agency, the terrorist was spotted in a reconnaissance mission. The troops called up an aircraft to target him, and he was eliminated.
Khatib planned and took part in many other terrorist plots against Israeli soldiers.
i24NEWS’ Hebrew channel interviewed Dor Almog, the sole survivor of the mass casualty disaster, who was informed on live TV about the death of the commander responsible for the killing his brothers-in-arms.
“I was sure this day would come – I was a soldier and I know what happens at the end,” said Almog. “The IDF will do everything to bring back the abductees and to topple Hamas, to the last one man.”
The post Terrorist Responsible for Death of 21 Soldiers Eliminated first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Stanley Fischer, Former Fed Vice Chair and Bank of Israel Chief, Dies at 81
FILE PHOTO: Vice Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve System Stanley Fischer arrives to hear Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney delivering the Michel Camdessus Central Banking Lecture at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, U.S., September 18, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
Stanley Fischer, who helped shape modern economic theory during a career that included heading the Bank of Israel and serving as vice chair of the US Federal Reserve, has died at the age of 81.
The Bank of Israel said he died on Saturday night but did not give a cause of death. Fischer was born in Zambia and had dual US-Israeli citizenship.
As an academic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fischer trained many of the people who went on to be top central bankers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as well as Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president.
Fischer served as chief economist at the World Bank, and first deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund during the Asian financial crisis and was then vice chairman at Citigroup from 2002 to 2005.
During an eight-year stint as Israel’s central bank chief from 2005-2013, Fischer helped the country weather the 2008 global financial crisis with minimal economic damage, elevating Israel’s economy on the global stage, while creating a monetary policy committee to decide on interest rates like in other advanced economies.
He was vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017 and served as a director at Bank Hapoalim in 2020 and 2021.
Current Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron praised Fischer’s contribution to the Bank of Israel and to advancing Israel’s economy as “truly significant.”
The soft-spoken Fischer – who played a role in Israel’s economic stabilization plan in 1985 during a period of hyperinflation – was chosen by then Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as central bank chief.
Netanyahu, now prime minister, called Fischer a “great Zionist” for leaving the United States and moving to Israel to take on the top job at Israel’s central bank.
“He was an outstanding economist. In the framework of his role as governor, he greatly contributed to the Israeli economy, especially to the return of stability during the global economic crisis,” Netanyahu said, adding that Stanley – as he was known in Israel – proudly represented Israel and its economy worldwide.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also paid tribute.
“He played a huge role in strengthening Israel’s economy, its remarkable resilience, and its strong reputation around the world,” Herzog said. “He was a world-class professional, a man of integrity, with a heart of gold. A true lover of peace.”
The post Stanley Fischer, Former Fed Vice Chair and Bank of Israel Chief, Dies at 81 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Says Israel Blocking Ramallah Meeting Proof of ‘Extremism’
Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud attends a news conference at the Arab Gulf Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 9, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Yosri
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said the Israeli government’s refusal to allow a delegation of Arab ministers to the West Bank showed its “extremism and rejection of peace.”
His statement came during a joint press conference in Amman with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain, after they met as part of an Arab contact group that was going to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
“Israel’s refusal of the committee’s visit to the West Bank embodies and confirms its extremism and refusal of any serious attempts for (a) peaceful pathway… It strengthens our will to double our diplomatic efforts within the international community to face this arrogance,” the Saudi minister said.
On Saturday, Israel said it would not allow a planned meeting on Sunday that would have included ministers from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Palestinian Authority officials said.
Bin Farhan’s visit to the West Bank would have marked the first such visit by a top Saudi official in recent memory.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in a “provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said blocking the trip was another example of how Israel was “killing any chance of a just and comprehensive” Arab-Israeli settlement.
An international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the conference would cover security arrangements after a ceasefire in Gaza and reconstruction plans to ensure Palestinians would remain on their land and foil any Israeli plans to evict them.
The post Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Says Israel Blocking Ramallah Meeting Proof of ‘Extremism’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.