As I read about the standoff in Arizona and, in general, the wild discussions regarding immigration, I have been thinking a lot about this memory:
A CHRISTMAS ROSE (from my journal, December 1980)
Tonight after dinner we walked, and what I saw seems etched into my bones. The “Zona Rosa” is the fashionable place for night revels. With the holiday season and all, the streets are crowded with tourists, obviously, but also many young Mexicans, looking handsome and well-heeled, out for a night on the town. There is a definite air of high celebration. It’s a “nice place.” The people seem happy, kind, polite, and beautiful. There are the old women begging too—a tug at the heart—but at least, I remind myself, they are wrapped up warmly.
Mexico City...It was there amid the sidewalk cafes, the shops, the fashionable restaurants and discoteques that we saw something which I shall never forget. I think I saw the exposed heart of a city of over 14 million people, and it was a touching reminder that there is spontaneous love and caring in the human heart.
A young man, well-dressed and perhaps either going to or coming from a party, apparently drunk, suddenly fell backwards on the red brick sidewalk and gave himself what looked like a severe head laceration. I felt frightened and anxious as I took in the unexpected sight of the blood along with the pots of flowers and bright yellow café chairs. I had a feeling of helplessness in the face of tragedy. And then I became absorbed in observing a behavior which the jaundiced eyes of American city dwellers might do well to remark upon.
A small crowd gathered around him and I listened to the concern, expressed in Spanish, among people who seemed neither to know one another nor the man on the sidewalk. It was suggested and concluded among them that he was most likely “borracho.” One young man kept trying to convince the others that someone should bring some sugar and rub it on the man’s wrists and throat—that it would bring him around if he were in fact just drunk. Some of the people stayed with him, kneeling beside him, bending over him with expressions of concern until the police ambulance came, promptly and without sirens. He was lifted quietly and gently, still unconscious into the vehicle which drove away again in silence—no sirens to deepen the trauma—leaving what seemed to me to be a sobered, saddened crowd on the corner.
As I stood there, I realized that I felt a feeling of warmth, almost of joy, welling up and displacing the shock and horror, because I knew that I had also seen something beautiful, a showing forth of human caring. A Christmas Rose? Years and years hence, my vision will come back to this tableau, when I am in need of it.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
ISRAEL WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE A LESSON FROM THE REDWOODS
ISRAEL WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE A LESSON FROM THE REDWOODS
By Barbara Smith Stoff and Sheldon Stoff
Here in the deep shade of the California Redwoods, I think about them. These Redwoods last for centuries and they grow incredibly tall and strong. Interestingly, I am told that they do not put down a taproot, but rather they develop a root system which connects and interlaces each tree with its neighbor. The Jews are like that, and because of their ever ongoing transnational history, they are, or should be, more capable than most of seeing the whole forest.
We humans are all trees in the One forest. Like it or not…our roots are forever entangled. As in the film “Avatar” those who learn to cooperate are the ones who survive.
Israeli religious right cites historical biblical bequests from God in order to establish a claim to Jerusalem as temporal and exclusive capital. Is that not a facet of ever-threatening modern fundamentalism? Religious fundamentalism, whatever the brand, offers up distortion, racism and bigotry. So! Jerusalem is no longer the mystical soul of Israel…but merely real estate?
Ariel Sharon was once quoted by William Safire in the New York Times as saying, “Through 4000 years of continuity in our ancestral homeland, Israel’s people have undergone hardship, persecution, Holocaust, terrible adversity. But the nation is stronger than others have estimated. We have overcome all our challenges. The Jewish people are indestructible.”
Historically, one can easily see such a pattern in the interconnectedness of the Jewish people. Even when they are widely dispersed throughout time and geography, they hang together. They support each other. They play the game of life with real passion. And when the game of life itself is threatened, they begin to play the game to preserve the game.
It’s easy to see that they carry social codes which can move the whole human race forward toward harmonious evolution. Possessing superb transnational skills, the Jews have seeded human society with tools of survival and growth. They have made outstanding and benevolent contributions to humanitarian advancement—across the entire disciplinary spread. At the same time, they have done proportionately less harm to humankind.
So what is it with the Israeli government? It seems obvious to me that, even in 1948, the newly formed state of Israel did not reach out with their root system to help the Palestinian people prosper. That fact also seems understandable to me if I look at their circumstances of immediate escape from annihilation, and given the circumstances of the Palestinian protest and war against their rebirth as a state presence.
The new Israel did rise to a noble response though, in the face of Palestinian opposition, in affording them legal rights, universities, and re-integration from refugee camps. No such integration was offered by surrounding states. Even now, Jordan is beginning to deny them refuge. Even now, a Marshall Plan, led by Israel and other interested states, would do a great deal to bring a spirit of peace into the region.
But recent history shows us that the Palestinians were proud, and they allowed their wounds to grow and fester in poverty, and without adequate leadership. While Israel moved forward in social accomplishment and wealth, the Palestinians began to feel more and more like second-class citizens, until their level of suffering simmered to just the right temperature for use as the petri dish for regrowing cast off spores of old hatreds within the ancient cultures of the Middle East. Some say that we create ourselves according to the ideas we hold about ourselves. Consider those old spores…Isaac was the chosen one…Ishmael was sent out. And on and on it goes.
And now the whole world is threatened. If Israel’s democracy is extinguished, that light goes out from the rest of the world too. Civilization cannot afford that loss. It’s time for Jewish Israel to recognize and honor its responsibility to the rest of the world…to recognize the importance of its democracy in the overall configuration of that area of the world. And it’s time for the other nations to reach out their roots to join with the roots of the Jews. The world is in an extremely complicated situation right now—politically, economically, morally. We know. We know. But, it’s time we all learn to sing a new tune.
And, it’s time for the Jews to sing a new tune, to let go of their internalized feeling of victimhood and own their true genius, their strength, their vision. It’s time for the Jews of the world to recognize the Palestinians. It’s time for the non-Jews in the world to let go of Anti-Semitic fears and hatreds and join them in that recognition. It’s time to recognize that we are all trees in the one forest. It’s a good time to begin. It’s a good time to create a new song, to tell a new story.
Note: Barbara Smith Stoff, poet and artist, is an Emmy Award Winner in Educational Television. Sheldon Stoff, now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, received his doctorate at Cornell University, is author of Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. They are co-authors of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect. They live in California, specialize in Transpersonal Studies, and are currently writing a comprehensive study of the concept of the Akashic Field.
By Barbara Smith Stoff and Sheldon Stoff
Here in the deep shade of the California Redwoods, I think about them. These Redwoods last for centuries and they grow incredibly tall and strong. Interestingly, I am told that they do not put down a taproot, but rather they develop a root system which connects and interlaces each tree with its neighbor. The Jews are like that, and because of their ever ongoing transnational history, they are, or should be, more capable than most of seeing the whole forest.
We humans are all trees in the One forest. Like it or not…our roots are forever entangled. As in the film “Avatar” those who learn to cooperate are the ones who survive.
Israeli religious right cites historical biblical bequests from God in order to establish a claim to Jerusalem as temporal and exclusive capital. Is that not a facet of ever-threatening modern fundamentalism? Religious fundamentalism, whatever the brand, offers up distortion, racism and bigotry. So! Jerusalem is no longer the mystical soul of Israel…but merely real estate?
Ariel Sharon was once quoted by William Safire in the New York Times as saying, “Through 4000 years of continuity in our ancestral homeland, Israel’s people have undergone hardship, persecution, Holocaust, terrible adversity. But the nation is stronger than others have estimated. We have overcome all our challenges. The Jewish people are indestructible.”
Historically, one can easily see such a pattern in the interconnectedness of the Jewish people. Even when they are widely dispersed throughout time and geography, they hang together. They support each other. They play the game of life with real passion. And when the game of life itself is threatened, they begin to play the game to preserve the game.
It’s easy to see that they carry social codes which can move the whole human race forward toward harmonious evolution. Possessing superb transnational skills, the Jews have seeded human society with tools of survival and growth. They have made outstanding and benevolent contributions to humanitarian advancement—across the entire disciplinary spread. At the same time, they have done proportionately less harm to humankind.
So what is it with the Israeli government? It seems obvious to me that, even in 1948, the newly formed state of Israel did not reach out with their root system to help the Palestinian people prosper. That fact also seems understandable to me if I look at their circumstances of immediate escape from annihilation, and given the circumstances of the Palestinian protest and war against their rebirth as a state presence.
The new Israel did rise to a noble response though, in the face of Palestinian opposition, in affording them legal rights, universities, and re-integration from refugee camps. No such integration was offered by surrounding states. Even now, Jordan is beginning to deny them refuge. Even now, a Marshall Plan, led by Israel and other interested states, would do a great deal to bring a spirit of peace into the region.
But recent history shows us that the Palestinians were proud, and they allowed their wounds to grow and fester in poverty, and without adequate leadership. While Israel moved forward in social accomplishment and wealth, the Palestinians began to feel more and more like second-class citizens, until their level of suffering simmered to just the right temperature for use as the petri dish for regrowing cast off spores of old hatreds within the ancient cultures of the Middle East. Some say that we create ourselves according to the ideas we hold about ourselves. Consider those old spores…Isaac was the chosen one…Ishmael was sent out. And on and on it goes.
And now the whole world is threatened. If Israel’s democracy is extinguished, that light goes out from the rest of the world too. Civilization cannot afford that loss. It’s time for Jewish Israel to recognize and honor its responsibility to the rest of the world…to recognize the importance of its democracy in the overall configuration of that area of the world. And it’s time for the other nations to reach out their roots to join with the roots of the Jews. The world is in an extremely complicated situation right now—politically, economically, morally. We know. We know. But, it’s time we all learn to sing a new tune.
And, it’s time for the Jews to sing a new tune, to let go of their internalized feeling of victimhood and own their true genius, their strength, their vision. It’s time for the Jews of the world to recognize the Palestinians. It’s time for the non-Jews in the world to let go of Anti-Semitic fears and hatreds and join them in that recognition. It’s time to recognize that we are all trees in the one forest. It’s a good time to begin. It’s a good time to create a new song, to tell a new story.
Note: Barbara Smith Stoff, poet and artist, is an Emmy Award Winner in Educational Television. Sheldon Stoff, now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, received his doctorate at Cornell University, is author of Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. They are co-authors of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect. They live in California, specialize in Transpersonal Studies, and are currently writing a comprehensive study of the concept of the Akashic Field.
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