‘Tzav Piyus’: Is Loyalty to Identity Circles Conditional on Values?

Opening post by the rabbi

‘Tzav Piyus’: Is Loyalty to Identity Circles Conditional on Values?

Posted on 23/4/2006

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‘Tzav Piyus’: Is Loyalty to Identity Circles Conditional on Values?

Last Sabbath I was invited to stay with and speak to the group ‘Nifgashim Bishvil Yisrael’. This is a group that has been traveling for about two months from Eilat to She’ar Yashuv (the organizers are bereaved parents from the helicopter disaster, who travel and stay with the group all along the way). The group is organized by ‘Tzav Piyus’, the Helicopter Disaster Association, and other bodies. The young people were very nice, engaged, and certainly seemed positive and principled.*:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />*:namespace prefix = o />

After the Sabbath I spoke with one of the women in my family, who belongs to the very left wing (in my view) of the political spectrum, and she told me that they (=the leftist collective) have severe criticism of ‘Tzav Piyus’, which embraces the ‘wicked’ settlers and thereby gives them support. Why should one draw close those ‘wicked’ people, rather than the wretched Arabs who suffer because of them? she asked. Why is the attitude toward them not conditional on the quality and character of their actions? Why do they deserve embraces?

During the conversation with her, I thought about a certain distinction that seemed interesting to me, although after further reflection it may seem somewhat trivial, and I would be glad to hear the public’s opinion about it.

During the conversation I told her that, in my opinion, bodies like ‘Tzav Piyus’, despite the somewhat overdone sentimentalism there, which also bothers me quite a bit, treat identity circles as separate from circles of values and outlooks, and even from morality. An analogy would be a son who has gone astray and behaves disgracefully. Should we sever him from the family, or rather ’embrace’ him as a son, while trying to change his behavior? In other words: for most of us, the identity circle, at least in the nuclear family, is not conditional on behavior. A wayward son is still a son. We will embrace him and try to change his behavior. By contrast, our relation to strangers can be conditional on their character, values, and behavior.

The people of ‘Tzav Piyus’ apparently relate to the national circle as a kind of family (=a broader identity circle). Therefore even ‘wayward sons’ deserve an embrace, despite differences in outlook and despite harsh criticism of their behavior. I told her that in the discussions there, very harsh criticisms of the ‘wicked’ settlers were voiced – no less harsh than hers – from within the group toward their fellow participants (or toward what they represented there).

If so, on this approach, just as in the nuclear family, in this national identity circle as well, identity does not depend on character and behavior.

We agreed in the conversation that we disagree on this point, for in her view, beyond the nuclear circle (or the actual family, more or less), there is no identity that is independent of behavior and values.

Afterward I thought that her criticism of the people of ‘Tzav Piyus’ (not of the ‘settler-terrorists’), though it was couched as moral criticism, is not really such. From these considerations it follows that this is essentially a philosophical dispute about identity circles and their dependence on values. As stated, her attitude toward the settlers’ behavior is similar to that of the people of ‘Tzav Piyus’ who share her outlook. The difference is philosophical/psychological.

By contrast, the opposite criticism – that of the people of ‘Tzav Piyus’ toward her – seems to me actually to have more of a moral character. For example, if a person were to sever himself from his son because of the son’s behavior, would we not morally condemn him? If so, abandoning an identity bond because of values is itself a moral problem. On her view, admittedly, there is apparently no such problem, since she does not acknowledge this identity bond, but I am not at all sure that this is not a result of conflating the two planes. In my opinion, she disconnects from this bond because of the value problem, not because from the outset she does not recognize its existence.

In any case, in the view of the people of ‘Tzav Piyus’ (and on this matter I agree with them), she is acting in a morally reprehensible way, similar to someone who abandons his son, and the like.

The main question that arises in this context is: what is the nature of the identity bond? Why, in fact, does the bond between parents and their children have a moral character? For the sake of the discussion, let us ignore the fact that I brought them into the world and therefore have responsibility for them. Let us assume that there is nothing I can do, that I have no influence at all, and that the son is already an adult and has his own settled views. What is wrong with severing all ties with him because of his behavior? Is that really wrong?

And if there is a moral problem in this, is it correct to see it in the same way on the national plane as well?

In other words: is tribal loyalty (to the various identity circles) a psychology, innate or acquired, that is merely a neutral fact, or is there a moral principle here? My assumption is that there is a difference between the two, and I would prefer not to enter into a discussion of this, at least not at the initial stage.

(font, KLM) Mikhi

Source (forum ‘Atzor Kan Khoshvim’): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=1892998&forum_id=1364