An news story that I recently read piqued my fancy. It seems that there was a successful bank robbery here in Israel a few weeks ago. A gang of thieves carefully planned and executed that robbery. The criminal caper involved months of preparation and intelligence work on their part. Eventually, in the dead of one night, they successfully tunneled their way into the bank and were able to remove an enormously heavy safe from the premises and load it on to their truck for an apparently clean getaway.
They were ingenious in deactivating the bank's alarm system and everything in their plan worked to perfection. There was only one hitch in the entire operation. The stolen safe, which required a great deal of effort to open, was then found to be completely empty. Life is oftentimes frustrating, isn't it?
The predicament and fate of these erstwhile clever thieves is vaguely familiar to any student of Jewish life over the past two centuries. For the Jewish people in modern times have attempted to "borrow" many ideas and ideals from the bank that belongs to others. Most of these "borrowings" have required skillful planning, intelligent assessments, enormous efforts and skilled execution on our part. Yet, in the main, it would be fair to say that almost all of these stolen safes, which were so difficult to pry open, were empty. Worse than that is the fact that they were not even perceived to be empty immediately by the Jewish gang. The stolen safes had
to be completely dismantled, oftentimes over decades and even centuries, before it became apparent to all that the safe was truly, permanently and frustratingly empty.
The current debris of the dismantled safe of the Oslo Process is an excellent, if bloody, example of this empty safe syndrome. How much effort, hope, planning, and skill went into moving this safe into our truck! And it is now obvious to all but to a few diehard Peace Now advocates that the safe was and is empty. What new plans and "borrowings" will have to be made in our future in order to extricate any peace and quiet from the Arafat Corrupt Bank is currently unclear. What is clear though is that we should make certain that that safe in fact contains something of value before embarking on another well-planned, strenuous expedition to empty that bank of its safe.
There have been numerous other empty safes in our recent past. The Jewish Left, here in Israel and in the Jewish world generally, certainly found the safe of Marxist thought and practice empty. The belief that was widely held in the Jewish world in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century regarding the goodness and progressiveness of the Soviet Union and its economic, social and diplomatic system was certainly a false one. The belief that American Jewry would be able to survive and prosper Jewishly by abandoning the traditional, time-tested observances of Jewish life and assimilating into the blessed 'melting pot' of American society has also proven to be an empty safe. The slavish adherence of much of liberal Jewry to every new social fad and current politically correct policy and attitude has not added to the vitality of Israel nor to its confidence of continuity. Accommodating Judaism to the lowest common denominator of minimal observance of tradition has not proven to be any sort of solution to the problem of attracting Jews to remain Jewish. In fact, compromising Judaism and substituting for it all sorts of new "spiritual" services and activities is again only an empty safe.
On the other hand, there are safes that are worth attempting to acquire. The restructuring of the values taught in Israeli schools, currently being advanced by the new Minister of Education, is to be commended. Jewish pride and not misplaced Jewish guilt is what should be emphasized in our schools and homes. In fact it should become apparent that we already have full safes in our possession. We need only open them once again and restore their treasures to our society and future generations. Self-criticism and analysis of behavior and goals is always in place. But identification with those who have sworn to destroy us and loyalty to ideals which have long since proven to be irrelevant or harmful to our struggle to survive as a vital and strong Jewish people, unfortunately lead only to struggling to
acquire and open empty safes.
They were ingenious in deactivating the bank's alarm system and everything in their plan worked to perfection. There was only one hitch in the entire operation. The stolen safe, which required a great deal of effort to open, was then found to be completely empty. Life is oftentimes frustrating, isn't it?
The predicament and fate of these erstwhile clever thieves is vaguely familiar to any student of Jewish life over the past two centuries. For the Jewish people in modern times have attempted to "borrow" many ideas and ideals from the bank that belongs to others. Most of these "borrowings" have required skillful planning, intelligent assessments, enormous efforts and skilled execution on our part. Yet, in the main, it would be fair to say that almost all of these stolen safes, which were so difficult to pry open, were empty. Worse than that is the fact that they were not even perceived to be empty immediately by the Jewish gang. The stolen safes had
to be completely dismantled, oftentimes over decades and even centuries, before it became apparent to all that the safe was truly, permanently and frustratingly empty.
The current debris of the dismantled safe of the Oslo Process is an excellent, if bloody, example of this empty safe syndrome. How much effort, hope, planning, and skill went into moving this safe into our truck! And it is now obvious to all but to a few diehard Peace Now advocates that the safe was and is empty. What new plans and "borrowings" will have to be made in our future in order to extricate any peace and quiet from the Arafat Corrupt Bank is currently unclear. What is clear though is that we should make certain that that safe in fact contains something of value before embarking on another well-planned, strenuous expedition to empty that bank of its safe.
There have been numerous other empty safes in our recent past. The Jewish Left, here in Israel and in the Jewish world generally, certainly found the safe of Marxist thought and practice empty. The belief that was widely held in the Jewish world in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century regarding the goodness and progressiveness of the Soviet Union and its economic, social and diplomatic system was certainly a false one. The belief that American Jewry would be able to survive and prosper Jewishly by abandoning the traditional, time-tested observances of Jewish life and assimilating into the blessed 'melting pot' of American society has also proven to be an empty safe. The slavish adherence of much of liberal Jewry to every new social fad and current politically correct policy and attitude has not added to the vitality of Israel nor to its confidence of continuity. Accommodating Judaism to the lowest common denominator of minimal observance of tradition has not proven to be any sort of solution to the problem of attracting Jews to remain Jewish. In fact, compromising Judaism and substituting for it all sorts of new "spiritual" services and activities is again only an empty safe.
On the other hand, there are safes that are worth attempting to acquire. The restructuring of the values taught in Israeli schools, currently being advanced by the new Minister of Education, is to be commended. Jewish pride and not misplaced Jewish guilt is what should be emphasized in our schools and homes. In fact it should become apparent that we already have full safes in our possession. We need only open them once again and restore their treasures to our society and future generations. Self-criticism and analysis of behavior and goals is always in place. But identification with those who have sworn to destroy us and loyalty to ideals which have long since proven to be irrelevant or harmful to our struggle to survive as a vital and strong Jewish people, unfortunately lead only to struggling to
acquire and open empty safes.