I want to thank Ina Friedman for a review of Defeating Hitler by Avraham Burg in your, Aug 6 ’07 edition. I especially appreciated that the review avoided some of the personal invectives that was evident in other writings about Mr. Burg and his new book. I am glad that she resisted the temptation, as it provides an opportunity to evaluate the reported contents of the book on its own merit.
I also think that Mr. Burg and his book deserve thoughtful and serious consideration. The issues raised are truly difficult, important, and of existential significance. They are also necessary if we are to aspire to a tikkun (repair) of our society if not to its survival.
It should come as no surprise that someone who knows us intimately, understands that we are indeed a community suffering from a multitude of dysfunctional pathologies. After the past two thousand years of experience it would be truly extraordinary, unimaginable and a miracle if it were otherwise.
Rather than concentrating only on criticism, the basic question needs to be how do we go about healing so sick and distorted an entity?
I believe that what tends to assist the individual in order to achieve a healthier state of being should be acknowledged as of great importance and value in the case of this our collective as well. This large collective of individuals is subject to the same basic needs as the lone individual. First and foremost, it is compassion for oneself, and also for family and friends. When we are called upon to: love our neighbor as ourselves I understand that there is the assumption that we love ourselves. I would hope that is what reading Mr. Burg’s insights would lead us both to deeply and in abundance. This self love must be balanced by Hillel’s adage If I am only for myself what am I?
I believe the second requirement for a healing (as with the individual), is rest that allows and provides the opportunity for the organism to devote its innate energies to healing itself.
It seems obvious to me that in a world of justice, a person or persons having experienced and suffered the outrages that we have at the hands of other people and nations, would be in desperate need of a quiet well kept traditional Swiss sanatorium, high in the mountains. Instead we find ourselves abandoned/confined to a crazy house where the most violent inhabitants have taken control.
Thank you
Yoram Getzler
