Reflections Following the Death of Yonatan Geffen (Column 561)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

Reflections Following the Death of Yonatan Geffen

Last Wednesday, Yonatan Geffen passed away (I’m linking to Wikipedia because I suspect the current generation doesn’t really know him), and it stirred thoughts I wish to share with you. I read that on that evening all the TV news editions devoted a considerable segment to Geffen, except Channel 14’s newscast (which didn’t mention him at all). I don’t know if that was a coincidence, but it seems they decided that the death of a person who doesn’t share their worldview isn’t worth noting. Still, it remains true that his death was noted across Israel’s media.

Such omissions, of course, happen on all sides. Many times in the past I protested the fact that media outlets didn’t relate to the passing of various intellectuals, especially rabbis (unless they held political standing), but when the deceased is a leftist figure, they never miss. Needless to say, the fate of singers, actors, athletes, media personalities, and models is entirely different. I suppose in those cases this is usually due to ignorance and/or stupidity rather than conscious bias—unlike Channel 14’s case, where surely they knew who he was, and therefore it seems a conscious political censorship was applied.

Geffen was certainly a problematic figure, personally and publicly, but there’s no doubt he was a very talented person, with integrity and the courage to say and write his truth and follow it through to the end (sometimes very bluntly). He grew up at the very heart of Israeli and Zionist life—even in terms of his family background (Moshe Dayan and the whole family court), and of course his upbringing (Nahalal)—and precisely because of that he largely symbolizes for me the great turn the Zionist left underwent. It began with the militant sabra of the Labor settlement movement, with a fiery and self-confident Zionist-socialist worldview, and over time arrived at the embittered Tel Aviv leftist, universalist, skeptical, and to a great extent progressive. Over time, I think this began appearing in Soldiers’ Talk after the Six-Day War, continued with the crisis after the Yom Kippur War that shattered our confidence in ourselves and in the rightness of our path, and later took expression in the Labor Party’s present form (no relation whatsoever to the original party), on the way to “B’Tselem” and “Breaking the Silence.” Needless to say, all these did and do sometimes make valid claims, but the spirit that blows from them is an alienated one that also characterized Yonatan Geffen and his contemporaries.

And nevertheless, despite all the disputes and the problems surrounding him, we’re dealing with a gifted and fascinating person who left a great mark here and deeply influenced our culture (in its broadest sense). His death most certainly warrants extensive mention in the news, and I thought that here on the site it’s also worth dedicating a bit of thought and writing a few words following his passing.

Ziva Shamir’s “Eulogy”

Last weekend I was sent an article written by Prof. Ziva Shamir on her very interesting blog Meva”A (Studies in Hebrew Literature), in which she relates to Yonatan Geffen and in particular to his ars poetica song “How a Song Is Born.” Reading it, my sense was that in the subtext Shamir intended to champion the poets’ cause—that is, to oppose the tendency to regard Geffen as a poet—and therefore she was careful to present him as a lyricist. Not for nothing does she open with a description of a bookstore bag printed on both sides with Bialik and Geffen; it’s hard not to feel her criticism and the disdain she feels toward such comparisons. In her closing sentence as well, she calls Geffen a “writer,” and in my opinion not by chance. Strangely, a few hours later she published another article of hers, a fervent paean to Bialik’s greatness (the Jewish-Israeli Shakespeare).

Even her analysis of his “How a Song Is Born,” which ostensibly treats it in detail and accords it respect as a poem, in my view still indicates her attitude toward him. She doesn’t really grant that text much poetic respect, since she addresses mainly the song’s content and not at all its structure, features, and poetic qualities, as she customarily does in essays about poets’ poetry. And perhaps it really doesn’t have such qualities. I’m no expert. Incidentally, in column 488 I discussed another of her essays that criticized Mizrahi music, and the motto I chose for that column was none other than Geffen’s song “How a Song Is Born.” So who says there’s no providence?!

Let us return to the point. I cite Shamir’s words here as a point of departure for a claim about Geffen himself.

Was Yonatan Geffen a Poet?

In a series of columns (107 – 113) I noted how very hard it is to define poetry. There I proposed a negative definition, roughly as follows: poetry is a text whose message is not embedded in the literal meaning of the words that comprise it, but in its structure and subtext. A text that conveys a message directly expressed by the words is prose (not literature, but an encyclopedia entry). Pure poetry stands at the opposite pole, detached from the words’ meaning as such. I noted there that there is a broad spectrum of poetic levels and qualities, arranged along the axis I described—in whose two ends stand poetry and an encyclopedia entry (literature lies somewhere in between). Because a poem is not distinguished by its message or its content but by the manner of transmission, its poetic evaluation is not clearly dependent on content but mainly on structure. You can have a wonderful poem that conveys a contemptible or problematic message, and vice versa. There are also inferior poems that convey a shallow and infantile message (cf. the short-story competition—the clips or songs—of Lehavah).

In her analysis of Geffen’s song, Shamir points out that a song is born of pain, and the readers’ enjoyment feeds on the writer’s pain. I think this is an excellent description of Yonatan Geffen’s work in particular—not necessarily his songs. In his columns, films and plays, even letters, and no less in the various texts he delivered on every possible stage (he may have been the first in Israel to engage in “throwing poetry,” poetry slum, long before it became fashionable here). I think his ability to express ideas and moods—and to hit on moods prevailing in the public (and even to shape them)—derives from the great personal pain he felt in the face of the phenomena he writes and sings about. He succeeds in distilling from that pain an expression of the spirit of the age—and to a great extent also to shape it. Geffen puts a finger on every sore spot among us. His own pain is palpable, and it likely underlay his personal entanglements and his provocative statements and behaviors.

His great talent for articulating pain (even when he speaks in sharp irony and cynicism, you can’t miss the pain expressed in the words) and that spirit—this might merit him the title “poet.” It is admittedly rather “lean” poetry, and I don’t know whether there are there poetic and linguistic structures of a significant poet (even without being an expert, poetically this isn’t Alterman’s league). But there is undoubtedly a quality here beyond poetics, expressed in an impressive command of the language with fascinating wordplay. Perhaps it really is more accurate to call him a writer, but there is no doubt he possessed the qualities of a significant artist.

On Bubbleness

The many eulogies for Geffen raise the issue of “the bubble.” Channel 14 is apparently trying to expand the bubble toward older audiences, but even without it—and before it—such a bubble existed and exists. For example, I just read a column by Yehuda Gezbar Fenigstein, describing the disconnect of his “Torani” (religious) childhood from the entire culture of children’s songs like The Sixteenth Sheep. Needless to say, the disconnect is two-way, but in the cultural sense I think the secular don’t lose much. Religious children’s songs, as well as our didactic children’s literature, are a fairly small loss. The Talmudic/lamdanic way of thinking is a greater loss, of course.

Children who grow up without this music miss wonderful works, and beyond that they are also not part of the tribal campfire, and in a certain sense not part of the tribe at all. I recall that when our children studied at a Haredi cheder, we made sure—and succeeded—to “confuse” them with all the classics of children’s and youth literature, with “Hagashash Hahiver,” and with Hebrew songs (“Ktzat Acher,” for example, played at our home incessantly). A child who grows up without all this, in my opinion, suffers a significant loss. True, it’s not always very educational, and it may sometimes confuse a child in Haredi or national-Haredi education, but the risk of exposure to non-didactic and non-educational messages is certainly worth it for the cultural value that comes with it. Not for nothing does the right-religious culture fail to produce works, songs, or satire of such quality (in recent years there has been a marked improvement). The didactic-educational motivations hinder mature creativity and certainly children’s culture. It’s hard to arrive at meaningful creation without a readiness to kick and test boundaries. In my view, a religious child should also learn that sometimes it’s right to kick what you’re being taught, or at least to consider it seriously. Not everything you’re taught is sacred, and even if it is, it does no harm to examine it and its boundaries from time to time. Without that, there is no creativity and no originality, and without those we get Haredi–hardali–religious desolation.

We must understand that this dry desolation carries nontrivial costs in far broader senses than cultural lack and detachment from the surrounding culture. Because we lack the kick and critical thinking, sometimes these arrive in adulthood—and then one kicks all the frameworks in which we grew up and which we instilled. Ironically, a dose of anarchism can indeed help preserve frameworks. I think the ability to contain kicks of the Yonatan Geffen type is part of the strength of Israeli culture. Some explain the verse “to bow one’s head like a bulrush” to mean that flexibility helps the plant withstand a stormy wind far more than the cedar’s rigidity (which will break in such wind). An open society develops and survives better in the long term, despite the short-term costs of openness. Geffen was hard to digest even in the secular world of yesteryear, and certainly in the religious world. But he could definitely teach us a lesson in kicking and in critical thinking, even if somewhat extreme.

A Look at the Metamorphosis the Left Underwent

In the second part of my book Two Wagons, I pointed to a strange process that the Israeli left (as part of the global left) underwent. As a rule of thumb, we all know that the disagreement between right and left revolves around the line distinguishing two values: the right champions freedom/liberty and the left champions equality. But sometimes we fail to notice that there are two different kinds of equality, and therefore two kinds of left.

The left at the start of the twentieth century (communism and its varieties of socialism) crystallized as a resolute worldview that sanctified the value of equality and held absolute truths in an almost religious way—a view in whose name adherents were sometimes willing to trample anyone in their path (and also its own people, as oil for the wheels of the revolution). In the terms of my aforementioned book, this was a synthetic phenomenon (though in its depths it was based on analyticity—and that was probably the secret of its charm, as the future proved). By contrast, today’s left is the opposite extreme: a value vacuum that includes the nullification of every value, equality for all, universalism unwilling to accept any particularity and no priority of a person or a group, a nation or a religion, in any respect. A world in which all narratives are empty and equal in standing. Because humans are religious creatures (homo religiosus) and need absolute values, in recent years the left has turned that vacuum itself into a fanatical, binding value—something like a religious value—and thus arose the phenomenon of progressivism and (so-called) “liberalism.”

It’s no accident that nowadays we repeatedly hear voices trying to equate the demand by the religious that their values be considered with parallel demands by the secular—the empty wagon. I think this is the positive left (the Zionist left) shaking itself free from the melting pot that fused it with the negative left (what is sometimes called “the extreme left”). The current protests are aimed at the right (especially the religious right), which regards it as an empty wagon—but in truth, at bottom, it seeks to distinguish itself from its negative-left counterparts. I think that’s why the protesters insist so much on appearing with flags—something hardly seen or heard in left-wing protests in the past.

In both phases of the left there is a central (indeed almost sole) value of equality, but the earlier phase contained positive equality, whereas the modern (indeed postmodern) phase is dedicated mainly to negative equality. Positive equality is based on values and positive arguments, and thus had “religious” features. It had a resolute, clear truth; it showed no pluralism and usually no tolerance. Negative equality, by contrast, is fundamentally grounded in the absence of a basis for discrimination (until it underwent processes of sacralization and turned the vacuum into a religion). The former argued positively that all human beings are equal and were careful to point out each person and group’s contribution and uniqueness, while the latter argue negatively that no one has a monopoly on the _ (fill in what you like) and therefore there is no justification for discrimination and unequal treatment. Today’s left equates everything—person or group—to everything else, and refuses to recognize any difference of any kind. Seemingly these are very similar phenomena, since both champion equality, but their roots are essentially different—indeed quite opposite.

We can illustrate this by two different coin-toss experiments. When a person tosses a coin and knows it’s fair, he wagers on heads or tails with probability 1/2, of course. This is an equal bet for both sides based on information he has. In such a case there is positive equality between the two possibilities (equality grounded in positive arguments). By contrast, what will a person do who is required to bet on a coin toss about which he has no idea (whether it’s fair or not)? Let’s assume for discussion’s sake that he must bet. In such a case, he too will likely bet 1/2 on each side—but here the equality between the possibilities stems from ignorance, not information. He has no rationale indicating equality between the possibilities—but also none indicating the opposite. In the absence of any relevant rationale or information, he assumes symmetry between the two possibilities. Therefore this is negative equality. A similar phenomenon appears in the halakhic distinction between a doubt of “a piece from two pieces” (two pieces are before me, one treif and one kosher, and I don’t know which is which, and I take one and eat) versus a doubt of “one piece” (a single piece is before me and I don’t know its status). In both cases there is equality between the two sides of the doubt, but in the first case it’s positive equality (based on information) and in the second negative (based on lack of information).

In my book Two Wagons (see footnote 18 there) I described thus the surprising merger of the three parties that formed the Meretz movement (Mapam—the far left—with Ratz and Shinui—clearly liberal right-wing movements). Despite the seemingly yawning gulf between them, the public accepted this merger calmly, as if it were something natural and self-evident. I suggested there that the reason is that it was a merger between the two kinds of equality, negative and positive. Both opposed religious chauvinism (which by its essence is anti-egalitarian and chauvinistic, of course), but for opposite reasons (negative and positive), and therefore they joined in a technical coalition. Even so, by the end of the process these two components (the three parties) fused into one unit, to the point where it’s hard to tell who belongs where. Today Meretz members don’t seem divided among themselves on economic questions, and you’ll hear very few positive arguments from them. Most all of them seem inclined to the negative left. Today all these also oppose national chauvinism and not just religious, that is, they were fused into one monolithic unit based on “you don’t have a monopoly on _” (our wagon is full too), and thus all blended under the left and its negative equality values. I’m not saying you won’t hear some old, positive arguments from a few of them—but the great spirit that hovers over them is that of a negative, postmodern left (today called, after the “religious” inversion the sacred vacuum underwent, progressivism).

Yonatan Geffen very distinctly symbolizes this metamorphosis. He began his path as a man of the Labor settlement movement, a typical sabra, an officer in the paratroopers (and in Golani—Heaven forbid), salt of the earth. In the end he rolled into the avant-garde of the embittered universalist left, alienated from any particular national or Zionist dimension (though he and his work were very Israeli). His admired figures are all international artists (Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, the Beatles), before they were known to the rest of the residents of our provincial country. His biography is the essence of the process of the left’s shift from the values of positive equality to negative universalist equality.

Room for Worry

These reflections bring to mind Geffen’s wonderful song, “Makom Led’agah” (“Room for Worry,” music by Matti Caspi):

This song has been played quite a bit in recent days. It always caught my eye—the marvelous play on the word “place.” Seemingly he speaks here of a place in space, an area somewhere at the edge of the sky and the end of the desert—meaning far from us. It’s full of wildflowers, shabby and crazy, and yet God sits and guards it and worries that none will pick those wild (=feral?) flowers that grow there. It seems Geffen stands amazed at how, despite our wildness and shabbiness, thank God we still exist. No one picks (manages to pick) the wildflowers. Only God could have ensured such a strange miracle.

But at the end of the song’s first stanza we’re surprised to discover that this “place” is a “place for worry.” In other words, it’s not a real place—and it’s not far. It has no wildflowers and has never seen a desert. Perhaps it’s actually right here, in our crazy and shabby (provincial) country. The phrase “place for worry” of course does not concern place in the spatial sense; it expresses some fear, a chance that something bad might happen. But Yonatan Geffen turns the place for worry into a place in its spatial meaning. Instead of a fear that something might happen here, one can speak of a faraway place where something will certainly happen.

Associatively, this shift reminds me of a translation into modal logic that I described in column 301. I explained there that ordinary logic doesn’t know how to handle the notions of necessity and possibility (“It is necessary that X,” or “It is possible that Y”). Therefore, instead of talking about possibilities that A might occur or B might not, one can translate this into possible worlds in each of which something that can happen does happen. Something that cannot happen occurs in no world. When we say that state X is possible, in modal translation this means there are possible worlds in which X occurs (possible becomes there is). This translation lets us handle the concepts of necessity and possibility systematically, since it translates them into states described in ordinary logic (X occurred or Y did not occur) in possible worlds. Interpreters of quantum theory do a similar trick: instead of speaking of several possible events, they speak of several worlds in each of which one of them occurs (the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum theory).

In the language of modal logic, instead of speaking about a “place for worry” in the sense that there is a possibility that something worrisome may happen to us or to something around us, we speak of faraway places (possible worlds) in which it happens in fact (as opposed to other places where it doesn’t—since it’s only a possibility). Thus the “place for worry” becomes a spatial place—but the meaning is preserved. Instead of speaking about the fear of what might happen to us, we speak of another possible world where it happens in fact.

Just to be clear, I assume Yonatan Geffen never heard of modal logic, and I suspect he didn’t mean here the translation I proposed. Even so, it’s entirely possible that deep inside him, likely not consciously, that was precisely his intention: instead of imagining possibilities that might happen here, let’s talk about what happens in fact in an imaginary (but possible) world.

Between Possibility and Forecast

Why did I recall this interpretive trick? Because in these very days we repeatedly encounter a mixing of possible worlds with forecasts of what will happen to us. In a few columns that deal with the controversy surrounding the judicial reform (see for instance column 554 and others), I explained that the fact that something can happen doesn’t mean it will happen. Opponents of the reform repeat, again and again, apocalyptic forecasts of what will happen when the government has unlimited power. In their view, it’s the end of democracy, and inevitably we will enter religious-totalitarian darkness and shadow of death. I wrote that although this is indeed possible, in my opinion the probability that it will materialize is entirely negligible. Therefore I explained that I see no danger to democracy, even if the reform is realized in full according to Levin and Rothman’s nightmare vision. I added that for me this coalition of delirium does not constitute a danger to democracy but to the state. We will probably still have democracy—but a state? Far less certain.

What characterizes these forecasts is the reasoning by pointing to possibilities, however remote. For example, in a clip sent to me (what I found online is only here, but it was a different segment), Talia Sasson says the following:

She speaks about the possibility that Bibi will (in a “personal appointment,” of course) appoint a president of the Supreme Court, who will then assign to the panel hearing his appeal another four of his henchmen (including himself), and thus they will accept Bibi’s appeal and he will come out white as snow. In her view, this is the goal of the entire reform. I am certainly impressed by the absolute knowledge she displays about all the details that will occur in the future—and yet I don’t find much point in explaining why this is cheap nonsense, as is Sasson’s wont since time immemorial. This is of course not because the scenario is impossible, but because I see no real chance it will actually happen.

Well, I’ve long since understood that Talia Sasson doesn’t belong to the department of sharp pencils, and that’s perfectly legitimate. Thank God we haven’t yet reached a dictatorship in which the law places limits on people’s intelligence. What worried me more was that a good friend of mine—who absolutely belongs to that department—sent me this clip, and wrote underneath: “Simple. Clear. I hope you think so too.” That truly shocked me.

For my interlocutors who oppose the reform, and I fully believe in their sincerity, this is a forecast clear as day—exactly like Talia Sasson thinks. Again and again I hear that this is precisely what will happen here in the next step, immediately after the reform passes. I can repeat in their ears my learned arguments as to why there’s almost no chance this will happen and why it’s also clear that this isn’t the trend and goal of the reform (whose seeds were sown long before Bibi’s trials; in fact he himself is trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent it, and Levin and Rothman are the ones advancing it, and so on)—but nothing helps. For them, the mere existence of such a possibility automatically becomes a forecast.

Take, for example, the proposal to change the composition of the Judicial Appointments Committee—the toughest bone in the throat of this dispute. It’s obvious to all the protesters that these judges will be doing the bidding of the politicians who appointed them (Bardugo will be president of the Supreme Court), and therefore in such a situation one can no longer rely on the court. This is nonsense, of course. It’s a possibility—but there is almost no chance it will materialize. You need only look at the conservative justices appointed in recent years to the Supreme Court (today there is almost parity between the blocs—contrary to the coalition’s propaganda that frightens us with the situation that prevailed there years ago) and see how, again and again, they disappoint their appointers and rule in a way not exactly conservative and not pro-coalition. This of course leads the appointers to declare that they are traitors—which for them is the ultimate proof of the court’s leftist-progressive bias, including its conservative justices. So what exactly happened? Politicians appointed judges in their own image, but these chutzpadik judges don’t understand that they are supposed to be their appointers’ marionettes. And I haven’t yet mentioned Alsheikh and Mandelblit and many other office-holders with a clearly right-wing worldview and intimate ties to the heads of government (Bibi) who appointed them—who somehow displayed impressive independence when making decisions. This is the phenomenon of integrity, which I discussed at length in column 548: even if a politician appoints an office-holder, he does not thereby automatically become his appointer’s lackey. But the protesters and the concerned all rudely ignore this phenomenon. Don’t confuse them with facts. If a possibility exists—it will surely materialize. The existence of a possibility somehow becomes a forecast.

In the terms I’ve presented here, we might say that perhaps there is a place for worry that this will happen—since it is a possibility (even a remote one). But for my interlocutors, if there is a possibility that it will happen, then it will happen. This is, essentially, a modal translation of possibility, whereby if there is a place for worry then there is a place (an imaginary world) in which it happens in fact. In addition, they also forget that this place is imaginary and far from here—that is, a world that is at most possible, but not actual. For them it becomes a world that exists in fact, translated directly into our world. Thus a possibility becomes a forecast; that is, pointing to the existence of a possibility suffices to create a forecast that this is what will happen in reality.

Leftists have a tendency to take theories too seriously, and therefore the critiques of Geffen and his friends suffer from this fallacy. They imagine a world in which it really can happen—and somehow jump to the conclusion that this faraway world exists here. This is our world. No wonder they are embittered and full of criticism about what is happening. For them, the worst possible vision—the place for worry—is a forecast of what is expected to happen, or already happening—and not in a distant place at the edge of the desert, but here and now. For them, a danger to democracy, however slight, is the end, in practice, of democracy.

This reminds me of Geffen’s obvious idol, John Lennon (a few days ago the radio played a recording in this wording: “I, Yonatan, the son of John and Yoko Geffen, light this torch…”), and in particular his mythic song “Imagine.” Leftists—both positive and negative—love to imagine. They live utopias, for good and for ill. There’s magic in that, and it’s indeed a good basis for progress and change—as the poet said, “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.” John Lennon—and Geffen, it seems, in his wake—yearn for a world in which the following obtain (from Dan Almagor’s translation, here):

You can see what the negative left’s utopianism looks like. Their utopia is that the value and conceptual vacuum they dream of will be realized; then there will be no (chauvinistic) religions, no differences between person and person or group and group, and world peace will reign. Then at last we’ll all be able to dislocate our jaw muscles from yawning and die of boredom. Truly a song for people at an elementary school developmental stage that became the anthem of a generation (at the bottom of that page appears the request: “Report an error.” Perhaps I should send them this column?!…).

But beyond boredom, utopianism—even if our utopia is the negative left’s vacuum—is also very dangerous as a practical roadmap. It’s a recipe for disaster, or at least for great frustration. Therefore conservatives recoil from utopias and even despise them. The first half of Karl Popper’s hefty book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, is devoted entirely to Platonism and to Plato’s responsibility and his utopian ideas for all the evil and wickedness in our world. The pursuit of utopias is destructive, for it tends to ignore reality and even steamroll it. In Popper’s view, all social engineering and social Darwinism—and the horrors that flow from them—are rooted in Platonic utopias.

Detachment from reality and disdain for dry factuality, living in utopia and for utopia—these are the traits of artists and dreamers like John Lennon, Yonatan Geffen, and their friends. As long as this occurs in the realm of art, it’s captivating and magical, and can indeed yield benefit and correction. A utopia outlines directions for future improvement and arouses healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo. But when one acts in real life to realize these utopias—insisting that they must be realized at all costs—it can be dangerous for the dreamer himself (who ends up frustrated and embittered) and for his surroundings (who are coerced to move toward the utopia at any price). As in Lennon’s song, the negative left has turned the conceptual and value vacuum—that is, negative equality—into a binding, absolute “religious” utopia. People who belong to it are unwilling to hear arguments or facts that point in directions other than their own. Hence the silencing of every “other,” done in the name of care for others (and “liberalism,” which in its essence is a positive idea—and in fact right-wing). From here onward, it’s a utopia like any other.

No wonder that an artist like Geffen, who saw the world through a utopian gaze, fell into depression, affliction, and pain—and no wonder that as a result he became embittered and grudging, seeing everything in a bad light with a toxic critique. This of course harmed his surroundings, but mostly himself. As noted, those pains were the source of his creativity and a source of delight and lessons for us—and for that we should remember him with appreciation. I hope that with his death he finds the tranquility that was so lacking in his life.