Of Wolves and Men: A Nuanced Assessment of People (Column 29)

With God's help

A few days ago I saw the play "Wolves" at the Cameri, written by Hillel Mittelpunkt. The play deals with a staunch Revisionist family, and the events take place shortly after the political upheaval of 1977 (Likud's rise to power). The play is definitely well worth seeing, and it stirred quite a few thoughts in me, some of which I wanted to share here (and to try to do so without spoilers).

The Plot

The play tells of Ze'eva, no less (obviously named for Ze'ev Jabotinsky), whose late husband Avraham (apparently named for Avraham Stern) was a polemicist and ideologue of the Irgun. Just to complete the picture of the names, the family friend is called Amidor (an unmistakably Uri Zvi Greenberg-esque name), and his daughter Yaira (a proudly Hebrew name, apparently also after Yair Stern), and so on. Standing opposite them all is Ze'eva's brother, an openly gay man and proud cosmopolitan (the representative of the new Tel Aviv in this Revisionist drama). Beyond him, in the background, there is also a treacherous and wicked Mapai-ist neighbor with whom nobody speaks (though they may sell him the house in order to raise money). And surrounding all this is a strong sense of persecution, along with satisfaction over the political upheaval of '77 ("At last, we showed them").

As the play unfolds, we learn that they hid an Irgun man from the British, and in the end he was turned in by someone. The suspect is of course the homosexual, cosmopolitan brother (the treacherous Tel Avivi—how could it be otherwise?!). Stories of disappointed love and betrayals come to light, family and political intrigues, a parade of political hypocrisy, self-serving concealments, and more. I must say that we enjoyed the play very much, and I even noted to myself with admiration that the Cameri Theater, a known and unmistakable bastion of the Tel Aviv left, was putting on an empathetic play about persecuted Revisionists. Tiki Dayan, the lead actress (excellent, as always), even said in a newspaper interview that after preparing for this play she had begun to understand the feelings of "them."

Afterthoughts

But when we left, I thought a bit more about what we had seen. In the end, without giving away the details, it turns out that almost nobody comes out clean. One commits adultery and betrays, another informs, a third is hypocritical, a fourth is a bastard, a fifth is a polemicist whose whole activity consists only of talking and writing (as has always been the way of the Revisionists, whose strength lies in their mouths rather than in their deeds), and so on. At the end of the play, the politician son (a counterpart of Bibi Netanyahu) delivers a hypocritical and ridiculous political disquisition, while all the other Revisionists stand beside him, clicking with their tongues and clapping their hands (while Yaira next to him is doing mannerisms that had me rolling on the floor with laughter. I think people did not notice her. So whoever goes to see it, pay attention). That speech is the final hammer blow from which nobody emerges clean anymore (even the majestic Amidor falls here). One could say that at this stage almost only the gay brother remains clean and pure, clinging to his pure cosmopolitanism (and perhaps also Dovaleh the son, the only one who speaks directly and courageously and without games, and it is no wonder that he is forced out of the picture).

In fact, without our noticing it, almost none of these characters comes out clean. A veritable rally of hypocrites, adulterers, and traitors. Somehow we were left with the impression that all the pathos, the ideology, the slogans, and above all the Revisionist sense of persecution are nothing but one great façade. Behind it stand small people, who commit offenses, intrigues, betrayals, and petty human smallness. The Revisionist balloon was left punctured, without a drop of air, on the theater floor.

It seemed to me that at the end of the day, Tel Aviv still does not really manage to give the hated Revisionists—the ultimate "other"—either credit or empathy. If at first my feeling was that this play looked like a European theater production about an African tribe in Zimbabwe, in the end I understood that this is a play about enemies, not merely strangers.

The Significance of This

Let me allow myself here to adopt the perspective of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. It is told that when he saw a Jew wrapped in a tallit (prayer shawl) and tefillin repairing the shaft of his wagon outside the synagogue, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said: Master of the universe, see how great Your people Israel are, and how attached they are to You. They pray at home, they pray in the synagogue, and they even pray while repairing their wagons. At first glance this sounds ridiculous and empty, but on a second look there is much truth here. Why did that man bother at all to put on tefillin and go to the synagogue? Let him stay at home and quietly repair his wagon in peace. Some will say that this is social pressure, but it seems to me that this is a mean-spirited view. There is something much deeper here, and worthy of appreciation. That man felt an obligation to pray and to put on tefillin. True, his urges pull him toward repairing the wagon in the middle of the prayer, but he does not give up going to the synagogue. So he goes with his tefillin on and repairs the wagon. Seen this way, there is truth in Rabbi Levi Yitzhak's words. It really does express a sense of obligation. That man, despite his urges and his constraints, does not give up prayer and tefillin.

The point is that we have here a glass that is half full and half empty. The question is how one looks at it, and at which half. Seen in this light, those small people who seem swollen with slogans and Revisionist ideology are people with urges, pressures, and constraints like every one of us. Sometimes they succumb to all of these, and sometimes they do not. But they still remain attached to the ideology in which they believe. They cope with the difficulties, but they do not surrender, at least not on every front. They fall and rise. They engage in intrigues, but for the sake of the party and the ideology. And if they themselves and their interests also profit, they are not necessarily disturbed by that. Yet the bombastic ideological rhetoric continues to issue from their lips.

Looking at Role Models

The education of children always makes use of role models. In religious education this is of course even more pronounced. The figures of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, as well as the sages of all the generations, are role models in our education. Religious historiography has a hagiographic tendency, that is, to depict them as non-human figures. Figures of splendor, devoid of flaws and crowned with every virtue (Even by his deeds a youth makes himself known ["even a child is recognized by his deeds"], "he finished the entire Talmud at age eight, and by age ten his teacher had already declared that he had nothing left to teach him," "righteous in deed and helping the downtrodden from the age of three," etc., etc.). Rays of glory surround the figures portrayed in children's books as though they were angels. No wonder these figures are depicted as belonging to higher worlds. We have no grasp of their deeds and qualities, but precisely for that reason it is not really possible to learn from them (except perhaps for some ideal utopia, which also has a certain value).

This is flawed education, in at least two respects. First, as stated, we cannot truly learn in any concrete way from such fictional figures. What is the point of depicting role models who are angels from the womb? It is like setting the eagles of the sky before runners as their model. Second, and much more problematic, it is simply a lie. All these people were flesh and blood, with urges and constraints, with agendas and interests. They surely fell more than once, and made mistakes more than once as well. They had urges, and more than once they succumbed to them. And in addition to, and despite, all this, they had achievements (despite what people tell about them, some of them really did complete the entire Talmud).

When one hears a firsthand story about a great rabbi and sees that he too looks after his own interests and stands his ground, that he is offended or gives offense, is hurt or hurts others, it sounds strange and implausible. But that is not so. They were all flesh-and-blood human beings, like me and like you. Their greatness lay in the fact that, although they were flesh and blood, made of ordinary matter, they labored and attained scholarly, intellectual, and moral achievements. They fell and rose, in the spirit of A righteous person falls seven times and rises again ("the righteous falls seven times and rises").

Once I met a very well-known Swiss Jewish mathematician who used to come every year to work with us at the Weizmann Institute. The theorem we attributed to him was the Eckmann theorem (that was his name): every car of length X can fit into any parking space of size X+epsilon, and the time the parking maneuver takes is proportional to 1/epsilon. Jean-Pierre Eckmann was neither knowledgeable about nor involved with Judaism or Torah (though his daughter was volunteering on a kibbutz here in the Holy Land), but for pleasure he read Maharal and the Hebrew Bible translated into English. He said that one of the most impressive things for him was that Scripture presents its figures without concealment and without whitewashing. These are human beings, with flaws and virtues. They are flesh-and-blood heroes, unlike what is customary in ancient mythical literature, whose heroes are godlike (though certainly with flaws, but flaws that are forgivable, like those of gods and not of human beings).

The Talmud goes in this direction as well. It presents its heroes in a very human fashion. There are stories about failures and achievements, as well as about flaws and urges. These are sages of flesh and blood, who err and sin, grow jealous and fall, and sometimes also rise. Afterwards people try to educate us into believing that all this is only according to their exalted level, but that in truth these are seraphim or gods beyond our rank. We have no way of comprehending their deeds, but clearly they did not sin.

This is, of course, a distortion of the truth, but this distortion is also harmful. In that way we have no ability to criticize their behavior, nor to learn from it. And certainly we cannot disagree with what these sages say, for after all we are dealing with angels. As stated, this is not the truth. These were flesh-and-blood people, with urges and failures, exactly as described in Scripture or the Talmud. David sinned—sinned indeed—and so did the other heroes of Scripture and the Talmud. Every last one of them. The sages of the Talmud made mistakes in Jewish law, in science, and in general, and they sinned and repented and fell and rose. They were all flesh and blood like me and you, without divine inspiration and without other folktales, and they themselves—and certainly their words—ought to be approached critically.

Contemporary Implications

Perhaps this is also the right way to look at politicians or cultural heroes. Some of them truly belong among the spineless, and it is a pity that they are what people focus on. But regarding some of them, one should remember that although their weaknesses are exposed—and it is a pity that all this does not interfere with the admiration that young people, and not only they, feel for them—still, on the other hand, older and more clear-sighted people should not focus only on the weaknesses. These are flesh-and-blood people, with urges and weaknesses, and it is still possible that values really matter to them and that they really act for their sake. Cynical commentators (cf. Hanan Kristal) attribute everything to interests and agendas, to urges and the pursuit of honor and power, focusing their gaze on the empty half of the glass. We must not ignore it, but we should remember that there is also a full half. Despite the weaknesses, they try. They do not always succeed, and perhaps never do, but still, let us give them some credit.

Back to Wolves

If we return to the play, it seems to me that from such a perspective its heroes emerge as flesh and blood, yet certainly worthy of appreciation and empathy. These are people made of ordinary stuff, who struggle with their urges and with their human traits, yet do not abandon the ideology and the values in which they believe. They are well aware of their weaknesses and sometimes succumb to them, but that does not prevent them from continuing their ideological discourse and activity, which at times appear bombastic and anachronistic, even ridiculous. From a distance they look small, but from up close one can see, through the bombast and the ridicule, amid all the falls, also their very human greatness.

Conclusions

If every time we encounter a human failing within ourselves we declare that we are in no position to speak and act in a value-laden and ideological way, then we have thereby left values to the ministering angels. But our sages taught us that The Torah was not given to ministering angels ("the Torah was not given to the ministering angels"). We must be righteous people. Not the kind who never fall, but the kind of whom it is said A righteous person falls seven times and rises again ("the righteous falls seven times and rises").

It is customary among us to think that people are judged by their deeds and not by their desires and longings. But in a certain sense, when judging people, we must attend no less to what they think and want than to what they actually do. The sages teach us that The greater a person is than his fellow, the greater his inclination is than his ("the greater a person is, the greater his impulse is than his fellow's"). The desires and the values determine who the person is, no less than their actual realization.