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Ever-Dying Hope WENDY ZIERLER

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Ever-Dying Hope WENDY ZIERLER captured and imprisoned the yetzer ha-ra (the of capitalism — cautious, but not paralyzed, “evil urge” — lust, selfishness, competitive- because as both Karl Marx and the sages of the ness), the result was a world without growth, Talmud said (Kiddushin 40b), what counts is not without striving, without creativity — because, just contemplating the world, but changing it. as the rabbis concluded, it is in the nature of Change it we must; it’s time. A system ruled human beings that “without the evil urge, no by small, oligarchic boards of directors will one would build a house, marry, have chil- never be adequately responsive to the needs of SHMA.COM dren, or engage in trade.” There was the warn- the majority. A system that is structurally con- ing of Sanhedrin 97a: “All the calculated dates cerned only with the creation of profit — and of redemption have passed, and now the mat- that now permits 85 individual families to own Lawrence Bush is the editor ter depends upon teshuvah and mitzvot” — a as much wealth as half the planet’s human of Jewish Currents magazine (jewishcurrents.org) and teaching that for me thoroughly contradicted households combined, according to Oxfam — JEWDAYO, a daily blog the Marxist “calculation” of the historical inevi- will never adequately cultivate human potential (jewishcurrents.org/jewdayo). tability of socialism (after the self-devouring of in all of its diversity. Moreover, our planet can- His books include Waiting for capitalism) and therefore expunged my politics not bear the rapaciousness of capitalistic growth God: The Spiritual Explorations of a certain “history’s-on-my-side” arrogance. and innovation for very much longer. of a Reluctant Atheist, and Bessie: A Novel of Love and There was the Torah’s resignation to the idea I believe it’s time, once again, to risk captur- Revolution. that the poor will always be with us, and that ing the yetzer ha-ra of capitalism: to establish a our individual responsibility to alleviate pov- decent standard of living for all people regardless erty and social distress does not end when the of how educated, innovative, or otherwise “wor- government passes a welfare program. These thy” they are; to tax great wealth at much higher and many other Jewish teachings challenged levels in order to fund our communal needs; to me to reconcile the undeniable social reality evaluate products for their ethical, social, and of economics with the self-interested, status- environmental impact before turning them loose seeking reality of human beings — to move in the marketplace; to explore non-growth eco- beyond a class-struggle analysis toward a more nomic models for the sake of environmental sus- universalistic sense of human responsibility; to tainability; and much, much more. unleash my natural inclination toward utopian With Hillel looking over my shoulder, socialism and set aside the “scientific” pre- however, I would have us experiment with tenses of Marxism; and to properly fear, and such innovations cautiously and democrati- never ignore, the relationship between “plan- cally, motivated more by visions of possibility ning” and “coercion,” between the rights of the than by mere rage at the status quo — and I collective and the liberties of the individual. would have us preserve the memory of those In short, there were aspects of Jewish phi- millions killed in the socialist past, not in order losophy and our religious tradition that helped to to paralyze our activism, but in order to re- teach me to be as cautious about the dangers of member how very complicated it will be to embracing socialism as I am about the dangers of build a humane, democratic socialism. living with the anarchic, idolatrous individualism If not now, when? Yes, but… Ever-Dying Hope WENDY ZIERLER strange paradox runs through modern to consider itself the end — to regard its efforts Hebrew literature: The most enduring in various fields of life and thought as those of Aand iconic expressions of hope depend, the last Jews, edging toward the precipice from at their core, on despair. Or is it the reverse, which there is no return, no second chance for a that the most serious expressions of despair new struggle.”1 And yet, observes Rawidowicz, yield the most profound articulations of hope? “Our incessant dying means uninterrupted liv- The historian Simon Rawidowicz perhaps said ing, rising, standing up, beginning anew.”2 1 Simon Ravidowicz, “Israel: The Ever-Dying People,” in State of Israel, it best in his famous essay “Israel: The Ever- Nowhere is this curious mix of despair and Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity: Essays Dying People”: “We see that not only tradi- hope more evident than in “Tikvateinu” (1886), on the “Ever-Dying People” (Brandeis University Press, Waltham, Mass., tional Judaism, the Judaism of Torah and its the poem by Naftali Tzvi Imber (1856-1909) that 1998), p. 58. commandments, but also so-called modern or served as the basis for Israel’s national anthem, 2 Ibid, p. 63. secular Judaism tended from its very beginning “Hatikvah.” The original “Tikvateinu” included [2] MARCH 2014 | ADAR II 5774 ten stanzas that supply a seemingly endless list poetic proclamation of hope, though the title of of conditions according to which “our hope has the poem calls to mind Maimonides’ “Thirteen not yet been lost”: “od lo avdah tikvateinu.” For Principles of Faith.” Here, the very idea of uni- example, as long as a Jewish soul still yearns versal hope takes the place of Jewish religion, and looks toward Zion; as long as tears flow a clinging to dreams in the face of harsh, late- from our eyes like benevolent rain, and throngs nineteenth-century reality. Tchernichovsky’s of Jews still visit the graves of their forefathers; poem ends with a hopeful image of Jewish conti- as long as Jews still imagine the Western Wall nuity: After the death of the founding generations SHMA.COM and weep over the destruction of the Temple; as of Zionists, a younger poet will sing a new song long as the waters of the Jordan and the Galilee and lay a wreath on the old poet’s grave. Both continue to flow abundantly and the daughter “Hatikvah” and “Ani Ma’amin” are poems that of Zion weeps among the ruins; as long as pure defined early Zionism, and they have been sung tears flow from the eyes of the daughter of our by Israelis quite literally as anthems of hope. But nation and that this same daughter rises in the did the dream of continuity bear fruit? Did all that middle of the night to mourn Jerusalem; as long singing beget a new generation of hopefuls? A as blood still flows in the veins of the Jew and recent story by Amos Oz, “Sharim” (“Singing,” dewdrops fall on Jewish graves; as long as love in the collection Scenes from a Village) portrays for the Jewish nation still throbs in the heart of a family whose teenage son had shot himself to the Jew — then we still have reason to hope. death under the parents’ bed inviting members Note the recurrent references to tears, graves, of the village to a monthly sing-along evening and ruins, as if to suggest that a consciousness where they sing, among other Israeli favorites, of death and destruction is the very precondi- Tchernichovsky’s “Ani Ma’amin” — a disturbing tion of hope. The very phrase “od lo avdah tik- image, to be sure. vateinu” calls to mind death as well as rebirth, Consider another short story, by contempo- insofar as it alludes to Ezekiel’s exilic prophecy rary Israeli writer Etgar Keret (b. 1967) entitled of the resurrection of the dry bones. Some of the “Hahomer Shemimenu Asuyim Hahalomot” (“The conditions set by the poem seem involuntary, Stuff that Dreams Are Made Of”). The title of even assured: the natural rush of water in the Keret’s story alludes to Prospero’s soliloquy from Jordan River and the Galilee, the flow of blood Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” on the ephemeral in one’s veins, and the falling of dew on the nature of all dramas, dreams, and lives. Was the gravestones. And yet even these lines conceal hope of secular Zionism but a fleeting modern a pessimistic counterimage: the potential deple- Jewish dream? In Keret’s story, two young Israeli tion of water in an arid, rain-starved land, and men, presumably after their army service, travel the spilled blood of Jews in graveyards. The to Koh Samui, Thailand, where they buy a tube poem insists that hope will abide so long as of “the stuff that dreams are made of.” All they Jews continue to weep for and love one another. have to do is rub this stuff on their eyelids, and In contrast to Imber’s poem, which imitates they begin to dream — while awake. One of the Jewish liturgical poetry in its use of the first-per- men, Amir, dreams that he becomes an inter- son-plural voice, Shaul Tchernichovsky (1875- national commercial success; the other, Etgar, 1943) employed a first-person-singular form for dreams that his ex-girlfriend dumps her new boy- his famous, oft-sung poem “Ani Ma’amim” (“I friend, a law clerk, and returns to him forever. Believe”). The poem, best known by its first line, The latter dream immediately brings to mind “Sahki, sahki al hahalomot” (“Laugh, laugh at the last line of the refrain of Tchernichovsky’s the dreams”), acknowledges cynicism and de- “Ani Ma’amin” — “ki odeni ma’amin bakh,” Wendy Zierler is a professor of spair even as it asserts enduring hope. Others, “Because I still believe in you.” Except that here, modern Jewish literature and including the speaker’s lover, who is addressed dreams disappoint.
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