Israel is great, Israelis are great, there is no place I would rather live, and our critics across the world can take their carping and jump in the lake.
That being said, there is much we can learn from the Japanese. Spending ten days in Japan does not make me an expert on Japanese culture or etiquette, and like any visitor, I am sure there is an underside to Japanese life to which I was not exposed. And yet, the experience was eye-opening and its lessons present a valuable challenge for us, in line with the rabbinic adage that we can believe there is wisdom among the nations. What did I learn?
The Japanese are unfailingly polite. It is not just the head bow with which almost every person - tourist or not - is greeted at every interaction. Full prostration is too much, and even bowing to the waist to another human being is much too reverential to my taste. But the bowing of the head recognizes another person, shows deference, respect, and consideration. It says, “I see you, you matter to me, you deserve my esteem." The train employee passing through a car does not leave before turning to the passengers, standing straight for a moment, and then bowing his head. We could all get used to that.
Japanese decorum is not just in the greeting. Living in Israel now, and having lived most of my life in New York and New Jersey, I was at first taken aback by the following sight. When an elevator or train door opens, people waiting on the platform stand back a good three meters to allow riders to exit swiftly and courteously. No one approaches the train or elevator until everyone exiting has already disembarked. Then people enter patiently. No one pushes; no one rushes for an empty seat. Patience, propriety, and civility rule the day. It is natural, not forced. And here I thought that the only way to leave a train, bus, or elevator was to force your way through the hordes of people not letting you leave.
This civility is most pronounced on the roads and highways. It is hard to believe but in ten days, I heard horns beep just twice. Twice! I saw this while being on the roads every day for at least several hours at a time. No one speeds, no one is cutting lanes, and no one is trying to get a meter ahead of the next driver. I have often sensed that there are drivers in Israel who would rather donate a kidney than allow someone to pass them on the highway, and the sound of the honking horn is ubiquitous background music, if you call that music. In Japan, it simply does not exist.
The Japanese embrace an apology culture. A taxi driver one day took us to the wrong hotel. It was really not a big deal - it was on the way to the correct hotel that was in any event just five minutes away. As soon as I said, “this is not our hotel," the driver was shaken. He apologized (he knew the English word, “sorry"), and then apologized again, and then again. He took out a translator and dictated a full and profuse apology for his error. (Mind you, I had accepted his first apology and insisted it was an innocent error.) He then said, “my wife would be furious at me," for this mistake. All my protestations at the insignificance of the offense were brushed off as grounds for further apologies. The apology continued until we arrived at our hotel and he remained agitated after we left his vehicle.
It should not surprise us to learn that we live in a denial culture, one that denies personal responsibility and seeks to shift culpability to named others, unseen forces, or just the way the cookie crumbles. There is little today of Yehuda’s “she [Tamar] is more righteous than me" (Breisheet 38:26), even less of King David’s “I have sinned to G-d" (II Shmuel 12:13). Mostly it is spin, evasion, fudging, counter-accusations, and, of course, politics.
Thus, all those who seek to blame the Hamas invasion and massacre on October 7 on PM Netanyahu - and with good measure, because as prime minister he bears primary responsibility - they should bear in mind that there is almost no one in the Israeli political system that is not somehow culpable. Everyone fell prey to the conceptziyah - Gantz, Lapid, Eisenkot, Lieberman, Bennett, Ronen Bar, Golan, etc. All, to one extent or another, adopted the “quiet for quiet" doctrine, all allowed Hamas and Hezbollah to arm themselves, all allowed Hamas and Hezbollah to be lavishly funded by Iran, Qatar, and others, and all suffered from the same delusion that Hamas was deterred.
None of Israel’s politicians have unblemished records in this matter - except perhaps for those who repudiated the conceptziyah, like Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, but were powerless to block it. Perhaps that is why the media so reviles them; it is not just that they are right wing but especially because they have been so right, and for so long, never falling for the delusions of the left.
In a denial society, apologies are anathema. At best, the passive tense is used, as in “mistakes were made," and what and by who are purposely left vague and unstated. At worst, it is always someone else’s fault, and pointing fingers is much more common than gazing in the mirror.
There is something not just moral but even liberating about an apology culture, in which people take responsibility and learn from their mistakes. It actually makes citizens more accepting of leaders who fail - because even leaders are human. In denial culture, any admission of fault is usually career ending, as social and print media, and the Internet, never forget. Consequently, “never apologize" is the unfortunate rule of the day.
The Japanese are law-abiding, but sometimes in exaggerated form. Pedestrians stand at the corner when the light turns red - something Israelis also largely heed. I was walking in Kobe with a guide, with four people ahead of us. They crossed a street (it was more like an alley, about three meters wide) and when the light turned red, she put her arm out to stop me! No cars were in sight; yet, she was right. The law is the law, the glue that holds society together.
It is an extremely clean society. A sign in a bus station: “please take your trash home with you." I laughed. They are serious. There is no garbage in the streets.
Ultimately, what impressed me most is the common denominator of these features of Japanese society - the abhorrence of rudeness. Rushing an elevator or train, cutting off a car in traffic, failing to acknowledge a person in front of you or apologizing for a misdeed, would be rude. Of the two honks I heard, one was in a cab in which I was riding, in which my driver was almost sideswiped. He honked, and then he apologized to the other driver for necessitating his beep. The other driver did as well. It would be rude not to. Who wants to be rude? Why would a person be rude to another person? That can only happen if people feel entitled or superior, and that itself is contemptible.
To act rudely is to lose face, which is the great disgrace in Japanese society. We do not lose face as much as we put up a false face to rationalize our flaws or bad conduct. I learned also that Shintos wash their hands before prayer (like we do) - but also rinse out their mouths before entering the shrine. How about that? Perhaps our speech and behavior in shul would improve if we did the same.
There are some who always retort that Israelis have no time or patience for etiquette, that we live under the gun, and are always stressed out. But these are copouts, and not especially persuasive ones. There is no desire here to romanticize Japanese society, which at one time was quite militaristic until the end of World War II cured that aspect of their culture (Pearl Harbor, tortured GIs and hara-kiri come to mind...). Perhaps we cannot achieve their level of calm because of the circumstances in which we live. They can be patient, unflappable, and imperturbable. We are much more stressed.
Maybe, though, if we welcomed these features of Japanese society, we would de-stress even slightly, realize not everything in life - particularly on the roads and workplaces - is a competition, and we would gain in mutual respect and understanding. Even our politics might then become slightly more bearable.
To be sure, such is in keeping with the period of the Omer and the preparations for the holiday of Shavuot, and beyond.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is a former pulpit rabbi and attorney, Senior Research Associate at the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy (JCAP.ngo), Israel Region Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, and the author of six books, including “The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility."