Tsvi Bisk – Formulating a Jewish Covenant with the Future
“…only decadent peoples, on the way down, feel an urgent need to mythologize and live in their past. A vigorous people on the way up is more concerned with visions of its future.” Arthur Lewis, African American Nobel Prize winner in Economics
Several recent polls have justifiably alarmed people concerned about Jewish survival and cultural vitality.
- In Israel about 50% of young people polled identified themselves as primarily Israeli rather than Jewish.
- In the United States close to 50% of Jews under the age of 35 indicated that they would not view the destruction of Israel as a personal tragedy (70% indicated that Israel does not play an important part in their lives as Jews).
If we assume that Israel-Diaspora relations are a major axel around which a vigorous and vital Jewish life revolves these are ominous indicators. I believe that the formulation of concepts and practical programs stressing the future must be a top priority in order to counter these trends. The Jews need a covenant with their future if we wish to survive and flourish. We must “futurize” Jewish civilization and in order to do that we must “futurize” Jewish thinking.
The Jewish past and Jewish tradition no longer seem to be unifying elements of Jewish identity. They might even be divisive for ever-growing numbers of young Jews in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. Two objective trends are serving to exacerbate Jewish disunity: globalization and ever-increasing rates of change (where real time change constantly erodes the unifying forces of tradition). It is my belief that only visions of a common Jewish future can be a unifying force.
Since the 18th century European Enlightenment there has been no common Jewish tradition, but rather a proliferation of various approaches to Jewish life and identity. This in itself is positive. It is a reflection of ecological wisdom. We know that mono-culture – the planting of a single crop over vast areas of land – is inherently weak and susceptible to disease and collapse. Conversely we know that an eco-system that has ever-growing variations of species and subspecies is inherently more robust and resistant to disease and collapse.
The same is true of human culture. 19th century cosmopolitanism – advocating a single world-wide culture – is a recipe for cultural frailty. Cultural pluralism, not multi-culturalism (an ideology of doubtful validity), in which ever-growing variations of cultures and sub-cultures interacting with one another to their mutual benefit – assure that human civilization will prosper and flourish. The challenge has been to provide frameworks in which they can interact for the benefit of all.
Since WWII organized human society has been creating scores of such frameworks: UN, EU, NAFTA, WTO, endless numbers of NGO’s etc. None of these are perfect, all can (and are) subject to vigorous criticism, but all are dedicated to one thing – trying to create a better future. None are pre-occupied with celebrating the past and certainly not with recreating the past. Preoccupation with the past is always divisive; preoccupation with the future of necessity requires finding common ground and some kind of unifying vision.
Where are the Jews in all this? As individuals they are at the forefront of these universal developments. When legacy Jewish organizations interact with the general community they also play a vital role in sustaining and contributing to these unifying frameworks. Yet internally we have been remiss. What are the unifying frameworks and visions within the Jewish world today? Have not these very legacy organizations (including Israel) become divisive?
What irony! They were all conceived and initially functioned as great unifying forces within the Jewish world. They were all conceived and initially functioned as a solution to the problems and tensions of a pluralistic culture. Their past success cannot be disputed. Yet today they play a major role in alienating increasing numbers of young Jews. Now they are a threat to the future survival of the Jewish People. Management guru Peter Drucker’s dictum that “nothing fails like success” is no where more applicable than to modern Jewry’s organizational structure and policies.
What is needed are practical, actionable, doable projects (modern mitzvoth if you will) that enable young Jews from every part of the Jewish identity spectrum to work together on initiatives that have universal human consequences but are framed within Jewish value systems.
The Challenge: Judaism – from Civilization to Space Age Civilization
By the end of the 21st century it is plausible to assume that humanity will have explored the entire solar system either directly or indirectly by robotics. Small scientific “outposts” will probably have been established on various planets and moons of larger planets. Substantial portions of human economic activity – from mineral extraction to tourism to new methods of generating energy – will have become extra-terrestrial. If historical precedent is any indicator, we must assume that a disproportionate number of Jewish individuals will participate in these developments.
This transformation of human life – from being limited to the crust of the planet earth to being integrated into the entire solar system as its new “natural” environment – will have profound cultural, psychological and spiritual consequences. Every legacy civilization, religion, philosophical system will be challenged as never before by this new reality. Some will adapt, integrate into and contribute to its development. Others will fail and pass from history.
What will be the fate of the Jews? How will we adapt? What survival strategies must we develop – socially, economically, politically and spiritually? What will it mean to be Jewish as human civilization begins to settle and explore the solar system? Why should one even care about the continuation of the Jews as a civilization? What will this new Jewish civilization have to contribute to humanity – to the Jews? Can it even contribute to the Jews if it does not first of all contribute to humanity? What will be the interim stages and how will they be manifested?
We can rise to this challenge through an “imagineered” overview of possible futures of human history and the place of the Jews in those possible futures by applying the most stringent standards of futurist and policy making research. This overview would be informed by Mordechai Kaplan’s approach of Judaism as a civilization, but coming to terms with the new human reality being created in the 21st century.
Creating a unifying meta-identity in the 21st century
Organized Jewish society must create practical strategies, frameworks and projects that will enable Jewish individuals to live in and contribute to this emerging global reality. We must attempt to formulate a unifying meta-identity for an increasingly diverse Jewry on the background of ever growing identity differentiation.
60 years ago you might have lived in New York, Paris, Tel Aviv, London, Buenos Aries or Antwerp but you or your parents were probably from Pinsk or Warsaw or some other Yiddish speaking culture! And even if you weren’t religious, when you met Sephardic or Yemenite Jews you had enough knowledge of synagogue procedure and Jewish tradition to develop mutual empathy. In Israel today, what do Ethiopian, Haredi, Russian Jews, 3rd generation Kibbutz Sabras, Sephardim, Oriental Jews and development town residents have in common? In the Diaspora, what do Jews from Argentina, San Francisco and Paris have in common? What do agnostic Jews have in common with the Haredim? What is the force unifying Gay Jews, children of “Yordim”, Jewish identifying children of mixed marriages (45% of those on campus who still identify as Jews)?
I believe that only inspiring visions of the future can provide the unifying bond of Jewish identity. As with Zionism and the first decades of Israel’s existence, these visions must be capable of uniting the varied and diverse elements of the Jewish people around practical/actionable projects to create a new sense of Jewish citizenship that spans the globe. Such projects must coincide with world trends and contribute to all of humanity. They must be concrete doable projects, each of which could have transformative potential.
Fixing the present situation is not enough
Mordechai Kaplan’s approach had significant influence on the course of Jewish history in the 20th century. But it was facilitated by two objective historical realities:
- The reality of America’s dynamic non-sectarian civil society which after WWII almost compelled inter-ethnic and inter-religious cooperation. This essentially forced the intra-ethnic and intra-religious cooperation of the Jewish People (the majority of whom live in America).
- The unifying project of developing Israel, which after the Holocaust became of almost transcendent importance to the vast majority of the Jewish people.
These two historical realities – intra-Jewish group cooperation and Israel as a unifying force – are in an advanced stage of erosion in the first decades of the 21st century.
Israel has become increasingly divided internally (for both religious and political reasons) and this is reflected in growing divisions within the Diaspora (both in regards to feelings about Israel as well as their own internal divisions). American society has become more divided than at any time since the end of Jim Crow. This divisiveness has divided the American Jewish intellectual class into neo-cons and traditional liberals. This divisiveness along with evangelical and neo-con support for the right wing in Israel has contributed to the erosion of traditional liberal Jewish support for Israel (as militant evangelicalism seems to have become a major factor in American divisiveness in general)
As a consequence Israel is no longer a unifying force and is fast becoming a divisive force for growing numbers of young Diaspora Jews. And given the internal divisions within Israel regarding Haredi entitlements and the settlements it is less and less a unifying force for itself.
There is also a growing generational differentiation regarding the Holocaust. Within the next ten years the last survivor and the last murderer will have died. The Holocaust will increasingly become a symbolic event like the Exodus from Egypt or the Inquisition and expulsion from Spain. Its gut wrenching immediacy will fade; generations will arise “which knew not one survivor”. As with Israel, Holocaust remembrance will not have the unifying power it once had.
What Must Be Done
- Design Jewish Futures Studies Programs to be introduced into existing Jewish Studies Programs and make it a core theme of Jewish policy making. One of the great ironies of modern Jewish life is that some of the foremost pioneers of Futurism were Jews – Kahn, Toffler, Polak and others – yet futures thinking has not penetrated Jewish policy making. This is despite the fact that Zionism was the quintessential futurist political/cultural movement. Herzl’s The Jewish State and Old NewLand were futurist scenarios. Ben Gurion, Weizmann, Jabotinsky and Rabbi Bar Ilan were all “futurists” in that the full force of their intellect and imagination was focused on the future. Yet in recent years we seem to have turned our backs on the future and become mired in our past.
- Design a new model of interaction between Israel and non-Israeli Jewish communities (I prefer this terminology to the implicit pejorative Diaspora). What I call multi-node interactions, as opposed to the two node concept of Israel-Diaspora – a multiplicity of Jewish centers (not Diasporas) interacting across a global network of constructive Jewish activity.
- Develop a menu of national/universal projects that take the concept of leveraging from the private sector – what I have termed multi-dimensional/ multi-purpose projects. Israel as a laboratory for solving the energy/environment conundrum would be an example of this. These national-universal projects could be “sold” as a modern manifestation of the biblical injunction to be a “Light unto the Gentiles”.
- Such projects would strive to involve previously disinterested Jews in Jewish activity and to serve as a platform for cooperation with non-Jewish groups, including ones that are at present not friendly to Israel or to the organized Jewish community.
- Mining the tradition: searching the sources for those nuggets of wisdom that implicitly contain some of the building blocks of our new imagineered future – or which could be so reinterpreted by the imaginative mind, perhaps even sowing the seeds of a “Philosophy of Jewish Futurism” derived as much as possible from Jewish tradition.
- A practical strategy of how current Jewish organizations (legacy and Internet-based) can help construct a new futures oriented reality and develop a cadre of Jewish futurists to develop and expand the field through the “fan effect”.
- Covenant with the Future tours to Israel (and other Jewish communities) as an extension of Birthright. Just as Birthright celebrates and encourages an appreciation of the Jewish past so would Covenant with the Future strive to stimulate enthusiasm for potential Jewish futures. Without positive visions for our future we wander blindly – with our past as a burden rather than an inspiration.
