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What
Photoshoots can Teach us About Ourselves
Shabbat
Chol Hamoed Pesach - April 6, 2007
Rabbi
Ben Sharff
When I was growing up in scenic
Houston
,
Texas
, I remember coming downstairs to eat my Eggo waffles and enjoy the plethora
of comics found within the pages of the Houston Chronicle.
It got even better when the Chronicle bought out the Post, and the
comic’s page basically made up the entire entertainment section of the
newspaper. I just sat there
reading some of the greats like the Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes.
Ah those were the halcyon days.
My parents never complained
when I would just sit there reading the comics.
“At least he’s not watching TV.”
Plus it established my interest in reading more substantive elements of
the newspaper. In college, I
continued to subscribe first to the Chronicle, and then to the Austin American
Statesman. In
Israel
I received the international version of the New York Times – Washington
Post, which thankfully was still publishing reruns of Calvin and Hobbes.
But ever since I came back to
the States, I have found that I just don’t subscribe to newspapers anymore.
Instead, like some of you, I now read three or four of them online.
The Internet can be an amazing source of information.
And sometimes, that information is actually real.
But that is another story. Plus
this way I don’t get ink all over my fingers first thing in the morning,
which I am sure the baby is happy about as well.
The only risk is spilling coffee on the keyboard.
Fortunately the tech at Dell was helpful with that problem.
As a matter of fact, the only
periodical we subscribe to, other than professional journals, is Newsweek.
When I was skimming through it, an article caught my attention.
It is entitled, “Babes in the
Holy Land
.” The title immediately caught
my eye because it has three of my favorite words in the English language,
“holy, land, and ‘the.’”
The brief article written by
Kevin Peraino is about a photo-shoot in Tel Aviv by one of
America
’s most prestigious magazines, Maxim. It
is all part of the approach by David Saranga, Israel’s consular official in
New York and the Israeli government to engage in a publicity campaign to gain
the attention of young American males encouraging them to come visit the Holy
Land of Israel.
Tourism is no small part of the
Israeli economy taking in approximately two billion dollars annually.
This sum represents about two and-a-half percent of
Israel
’s total economy. Thus every
tourist
Israel
can get is vital to
Israel
’s economic wellbeing.
The article goes on to explain
that Maxim photo-shoot is indicative of
Israel
’s national obsession with hasbarah.
The term hasbarah literally means “explaining.”
But in other words, hasbarah, really answers the question of how
do you teach others about what makes
Israel
interesting? For the most part,
this effort involves teaching about the antiquities found within the land.
Israel
represents the birthplace of three of the major world’s religions.
All have ties to the land, and all have historic landmarks that our
various religions encourage us to visit.
But the problem according to
David Sarange,
Israel
’s
New York
consul, is how to attract a new crowd to the land.
It’s already popular with the evangelicals and with some Jews.
So why not photograph attractive young women demonstrating the
“cultural” diversity of
Israel
to bring in the young men?
Of course not everyone is happy
with this approach. Part of the
argument put forth by the photo-shoots detractors is that they are worried
Israel
represents a “brand” in the same way as Disney or Coca-Cola are brands.
Thus critics are concerned that such a publicity effort with turn-off
the more religiously observant, who might be inclined to take their tourist
money elsewhere.
What is interesting to me about
this argument is that it actually points to some of our own difficulties with
the
land
of
Israel
. Ever since our second expulsion
in the year 70 by the Romans,
Israel
has become a spiritual symbol to the Jewish people.
We prayed and pray for our return to the land with the in gathering of
exiles. We pray and prayed for the
restoration of
Jerusalem
, God’s holy city. In many ways
in our worship,
Israel
became a symbol, the epitome of the ideal.
Israel
is the
Holy Land
, filled with righteousness and blessing.
If only we could return there, all would be set right in the world.
Yet there is a fundamental
challenge for our ancestors and for us because
Israel
as the ideal is far different from the
Israel
that exists in flesh and stone. For
centuries after the conquest and destruction by the Romans,
Israel
languished like an abandoned home. It
fell apart, her walls crumbled. Yet
in song and poetry, Eretz Yisrael was constantly glorified, beckoning weary
travelers to return. And over the
centuries many have.
Some interesting examples of
this can be found in a new book by Michael Oren called, Power, Faith, and
Fantasy:
America
in the
Middle East
1776 to the Present. Mr. Oren
has attempted to write a history of
America
’s involvement in the
Middle East
. One group that comes up again
and again are pilgrims to what was known then as
Palestine
. These earliest pilgrimages date
back to even before the Revolutionary War.
Which I found interesting in part because we tend to think of Christian
Pilgrims as existing only in our modern times.
According to Oren, these
pilgrims went for a variety of reasons. Spurred
on by tales of 1001 Arabian Nights, they went because of the mysterious nature
of the Orient, as it was called then. They
went to reconnect with their faith by following in the footsteps of their
Messiah. They went because of the
pull of the land. Some even stayed
in the land with the idea of converting the Muslims as well as bringing Jews
back to the land to bring about the second coming.
Many who stayed were of the
most passionate of faiths. They
established schools and hospitals. They
educated generations of inhabitants. Yet
converts were few and far between. Also
it was not by the efforts of Christian Missionaries that Jews would finally
return to the land
Yet without fail, the most
common thread among these pilgrims, visitors, and missionaries, was a sense of
universal disappointment when they finally arrived in the holy land after
weeks of arduous journeys. One of
the most disappointed, also happened to be one of our most articulate and
entertaining writers, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or as we know him by his pen
name: Mark Twain. Shortly after
the civil war, Mark Twain, already a famous writer in
San Francisco
managed to talk two papers into supporting a round trip visit to the
Middle East
.
As a satirist, Twain’s words
about the
Holy Land
were particularly strong. He
described
Palestine
as “mournful and dreary and lifeless … and grimy and impoverished.”
Yet even in his words of disdain, the images of
Palestine
and the
Middle East
launched Twain’s career with the publication of The Innocents Abroad.
So even though the experience may have been disillusioning, its effect
would nonetheless ultimately be profound for the life and times Samuel
Clemens.
Others spoke of their
anticipation of seeing the mighty
Jordan River
, only to find a stream much smaller than any American river.
Or of the beauty of the Old City of Jerusalem, to only find it crowded
and in disrepair. The realities of
the land often dashed the illusions of their dreams.
And whether they remained in the land, perished, or quickly returned to
the states, this tension has been with us every since.
It is as if there was a
constant battle between our visions of faith and the realities within the
land.
Israel
is the Jewish State, it is a light unto the nations.
Yet it is a State where the President has just recently been indicted.
Israel
is the Jewish State filled with prophetic visions of justice.
Yet it is a State where so many are impoverished.
Israel
is a Jewish State where all can live freely as Jews.
Yet it is a State where Jews fight with one another often accusing the
other side of committing crimes to the same scale as the Nazis.
As American Jews, this
juxtaposition of our vision versus reality is difficult to reconcile.
We as a people who know persecution are supposed to be above this.
Aren’t we? So why then do
we read in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post about all of the injustice and
inequality? How can we continue to
support a State with so many flaws?
There are many reasons.
One is because it is our homeland both historically and spiritually.
Though we have been physically exiled again and again, our hearts never
actually left. Though our center
of worship was destroyed, our prayers never stopped facing towards
Jerusalem
. Though we have wandered in the
wilderness, our goal has always been to return.
Whether temporarily or permanently, something greater calls to us to
set things right again.
And maybe in that is part of
our answer.
Israel
as it stands does not represent failure, but instead signifies a modern
political situation formulated by policies we may not agree with.
But since when does disagreement with laws and governmental
institutions mean denial of support.
Israel
is one of the longest most stable democracies in the
Middle East
. Yet our support is supposed to
be unwavering. We are not to
criticize. We are not to express
disappointment because that demonstrates a lack of solidarity.
Yet as we know, nothing is ever
fixed if critiques are not made. Israelis
feel free to criticize their government all the time. And
most of the world feels free to criticize ours.
Yet there must be something about the religious nature that at times
almost binds our lips shut. It is
also our sense of history. In its
beginnings,
Israel
stood at the edge of a knife, and without almost unilateral support by world
Jewry, it might have fallen.
But not so today.
Whether we live there or just plan on visiting, it is a homeland whose
walls still need shoring up. It is
a place where injustices need to be rectified.
It is a place where our participation, whether welcomed or not, can
bring about positive change. This
is because in our hearts, we still can envision what it really should be like.
This is because our religious convictions as a people, who have always
been tied to the land through mystical bonds, can elevate the potential of
today to bring about a better tomorrow.
Israel
represents more than a land and more than a people.
It is in the end, an ideal. Ideals
are impossible to realize. Yet
from the
land
of
Israel
arose the most powerful voice in our tradition, the prophets.
In the words of Bruce Feiler author of Where God was Born,
“The most famous prophets arise in the centuries after Solomon in direct
response to the decline in moral authority of the kings.
The Hebrew name for these figures, navi, likely comes from one of
Israel
’s northern neighbors, suggesting the phenomenon was well known in the
region. The Hebrew word connotes
not a mere predictor of the future but a proclaimer of God’s will.
The prophet does not suggest what will happen, he or she dictates what
must happen if the people don’t alter their ways.
He is nota prognosticator; he is a poet, a social critic, a moralist.
He is a man of God, with all the power, moral vision, and contradiction
that implies.”
Since the age of the prophets
has long past, it is up to us to take up the voice of power and moral vision.
In the end, they battled against all contradictions trying to bring
about God’s vision of a world redeemed and at peace.
And since their voices have gone silent, we must take up the baton.
It is up to us to call out against injustice and suffering no matter
where it exists, and not matter the land where it can be found.
For as the saying goes, “There is a Messiah, and you’re it.”
Shabbat
Shalom.
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