the exile within

I walk up and down Gaza St. in Jerusalem with a book under one arm. It’s close to midnight and the moon is full. The air is clean; warm but fresh. The book is called “The Impossible Will Take a Little While: a citizen’s guide to hope in times of fear”. I arrive at the pub and reach for the door handle. A security guard wordlessly switches on her metal-detecting wand and waves it behind my back. I say “thanks” and walk in. I sit at the most well-lit table I can spot and order an egg sandwich and a beer. Coldplay is playing in the background but is soon relieved by Bob Dylan. I observe my surroundings that seem anything but unusual for the place and the time, and then I observe myself. Leaving my mobile behind has affected my consciousness - there is a flavour of alertness that isn’t there - replaced by the knowledge that if anyone wants to reach me, or if I want to reach anyone - well, we will just have to wait. I open the book. 

“Sometimes we convince ourselves that the ‘unnoticed’ gestures of ‘insignificant’ people mean nothing. It’s not enough to recycle our soda cans; we must Stop Global Warming Now. Since we can’t Stop Global Warming Now, we may as well not recycle our soda cans. It’s not enough to be our best selves; we have to be Gandhi. And yet when we study the biographies of our heroes, we learn that they spent years in preparation doing tiny, decent things before one historical moment propelled them to center stage. Moments, if animate, use the prepared to tilt empires. Ironically, saints we worship today, heroes we admire, were often ridiculed, tortured, or, most punishingly, ignored in their own lifetimes. …Besides the pressure of virtue as an unattainable status reserved for the elect, there may be another reason why people don’t live their own ideals. It may be that many who do not live what they believe have been stunted. They’ve been told many times: ‘What you feel does not matter; what you believe is ridiculous; what you envision is worthless; just sit back and obey the priest, the preacher, the teacher, the cop, the mob, the man in charge, or your own fear.’ When the still, small voice whispers to them that they ought to visit an elderly neighbor, or write a letter to the editor, or pull a few strings and let the indigent patient in to see the doctor, even though the red tape says they cannot, they tell the still, small voice ‘Stifle yourself!’Such self-numbed people may see themselves as perpetual victims. ‘I have nothing!’ they insist. ‘I have no power! I can’t do anything! I have nothing to give! Everybody picks on me!’ These are the folks who begrudge so much as a smile to their neighbors. Even as they live in houses, drive cars, enjoy health, they see themselves as naked, starving, homeless, penniless wretches waiting to be rescued by whomever is in charge. Their sense of victimization does not allow them to see that they are in charge - of their own choices.”

I finish the beer and ask for the bill. I look around. I often entertain myself by trying to imagine what places like this would look and feel like in say, 50, 100, 200 years. What languages will people be speaking? What music will be playing then? Will there still be a security guard outside protecting this fragile bubble of normality, people drinking in a bar, from a neighbouring world of checkpoints, terrorism and occupation? What will people be drinking to when ethnic segregation is no longer a part of the political agendas of the Middle East? When religion and blood stop dictating citizenship, which will be equal to all, and equally enabling. It would be hopeful at this point to say people I know have stopped believing in this vision, as many of them never had in the first place. Growing up in the social and historical anomaly that is the state of Israel can put all kinds of ideas into your head. Like the idea that war, conflict and competition are more naturally human than charity, respect and interdependence. “You probably believe in all those nice slogans like ‘we’re all human’ and ‘we’re all equal’, but I think we are first and foremostly Jews, and this is our only country that we need to protect”, said a recent pang in my inbox. When has it become OK in this culture to mock universal values? And what, exactly, does this constant fear of extinction by non-Jews bring us, other than the worst state politics imaginable and a level of human distrust that means even direct eye contact is now a precious commodity on Israeli streets? 

“Be strong and courageous and leave the results to God”, says another page in the book. “Leo Tolstoy read Thoreau’s essay ‘Civil Disobedience’; Gandhi learned about it from Tolstoy; Martin Luther King, Jr., read Gandhi; and the civil rights movement made history. Don’t be afraid to be a voice in the wilderness … It’s the moral and sensible thing to do.” 

I leave a 50 shekel note on the table for the bill, asking the waitress to add the 2 shekel optional security charge to her tips instead. I get up, open the sliding glass door and step back on the street. Looking back over my shoulder, I smile at the security guard who sits outside, and she gives me a frozen, empty stare.