Tikvah, or Hatikva?
Thank God it's hard to be a Jew
Every morning, after a few preliminaries dealing with gratitude for waking up, successful bodily functions, and study of Torah, the formal prayers begin with, “Blessed are You, God King of the world, for not making me a goy.” Actually, it’s the second of the morning blessings, after, “who has given the rooster perception of the difference between day and night.” This ordering reflects a tension between normalcy and extra specialness that will be addressed shortly.
The morning blessings were born of a Jewish insight that we ought to bless the Almighty for everything we go through at daybreak: becoming unblinded by waking up, having what to cover our nakedness with, being able to stretch and get out of bed, being able to stand up, the dry land rising out of the waters of the sea, providing all our needs, preparing us for walking, arming Israel with strength, crowning Israel with glory, and in general giving the tired strength. At some point, Jewish sages decided that “secular” gratitude was insufficient. The Jewish individual’s thanks to God must be grounded in the special relationship between them. Hence, “who didn’t make me a Goy (or as is so common today, maybe goy with a small g). There are two more negative acknowledgments for Jewish men: “who didn’t make me a slave,” and “who didn’t make me a woman.” Sounds awful, but the thinking behind these formulations is that this is the most parsimonious way of thanking God for extra obligations that apply only to men. Needless to say, I’m not going to defend the phrasing. The important thing for this discussion is Jewish gratitude for all the honours, real and dubious, that the Ribono Shel Olam has laid on us. As in, “thanks for not being able to have a cheeseburger or seafood, I enjoy being singled out by You, and as a consequence, by the rest of humanity who, even if they also express gratitude over every step they take, don’t have the special seal of commandment for doing so.
Having been born after the Holocaust-actually just by six years that were perceived as a yawning epochal gap until learning that the universe is 14 billion years old- I could freely be happily self -satisfied with the luck of being born a Jew. Everything about us, from our outsized achievements and contributions, to having been subjected to the intended final solution (for avoidance of the term genocide see Genocidentity in this Substack) was proof that we were a select extraordinary people. Who would want to be a G(g)oy?
The last three years of life in Israel have given me pause when thanking God for not making me a G(g)oy. As the quip goes, “is this what Jews were chosen for?” Should we be thrilled about it? For example, the experience of protesting against the current Israeli government has been exhilarating but also exhausting. With embarrassment I confess that the protests of my youth against the Viet Nam War, watching the nightly casualty reports of Walter Cronkite, and even the big three assassinations of the 1960s did not exhilarate or exhaust me to the same degree. In the sixties I could in effect shrug at the goings on around me, all the while pretending to be involved. In the 2020s in Israel there is no feeling of business as usual. Thank God for not making me a normal American. Here in the public squares of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, where the rubber of reality meets the road of Jewish history, there is nowhere to run. One has to be able to criticize the Israel one lives in, as well as remaining existentially loyal. Very different for American Jews who are bound to either criticize Israeli policy or support Israel right or wrong.
Today’s yield of online Jewish Diaspora struggling included a missive describing the recent Jewish Leadership Conference sponsored by the Tikvah fund. As described in in the Jewish Journal picked up by the Jerusalem Post, over one thousand participants gathered to answer the question, “can the Jews save the West?” As the author of the article David Suissa put it, “The thought of attending a Jewish conference that aimed to ‘revitalize the society that we love’ was oddly energizing. Where was the gloom and doom about the epidemic of Jew hatred sweeping the world? Where was the call to debunk the canard of Israel becoming a pariah state? Those questions would be dealt with but the conference aimed higher (!) More than a thousand attendees, including Jewish leaders, students and a Christian contingent showed up to see if Tikvah would deliver on the promise.”
Takes one’s breath away, no? Well, let’s see.
Tikvah chief executive Eric Cohen stated, “I believe the Jews can help save the West, because I believe we offer the world the clearest understanding of the fundamental human choice that we face in every generation: wonder or nihilism, gratitude or resentment, love or bitterness.”
Professor Ruth Wisse: “We are now a century removed from the existential and epistemological threats that Jews faced in the 19th and 20th centuries. And I would say, I remind us all that it is unwise and even dangerous to exaggerate urgency if there is no need for it. We need a new epic history and liturgy to mark the contrast between 1943 and 2023, when a transformed people of Israel rose to fight and win a history-making war against Iran’s ring of fire…We are now a sovereign people, and in America, Jews have agency as never before …No other people ever tried to live by divine standards of righteousness among people with often imperial designs. This unspoken part proved to be the problem. The Jewish way of life came with the tacit requirement for coexistence….You know how deliberately Hamas exploited the kindly Israelis of the kibbutzim and slaughtered them. They turned every Jewish virtue into a liability, respect for individual life that makes the country pay and do almost anything to retrieve a single hostage or even the dead body of a fallen soldier… Since Israel is just a stalking horse for democratic West, the war against the Jews is no less against America, against this precious republic.”
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik praised Marco Rubio for his speech in Jerusalem in which he credited the Jews for “the lessons that formed the base rock and foundations of our laws, of the principles upon which we decide what is right and what is wrong was built upon.” And he warned about Tucker Carlson.
Liel Liebowitz argued, “America is going to be all right. Let me try this again. America is going to be more than all right. America is going to thrive. Our finest hour, as always, in this great and godly nation, is always ahead of us. Because America, put bluntly, is the single greatest nation God has put of this earth to shine the light of liberty onto a benighted world.”
Finally, the concluding panel included Bari Weiss, Ben Shapiro and Dan Senor. Suissa writes, “In short, what came across at the panel and at the conference was that Judaism itself is a winning idea. The star panel was a perfect way to close a conference that aimed so high. Eric Cohen identified the enemy of the West as the supervirus of resentment, Wisse urged us to never despair, Soloveichik showed how Americans saw their story as a parallel to that of biblical Israel, and Leibowitz gave a full-throated reminder of why this fight is worth it. None of the speakers ignored the dire times we are in. The difference is that they emphasized not the darkness but the power of Jewish wisdom to save both the Jews and the West.”
Thank the Lord for not making me a G(g)oy.
It may not matter to you, readers, but I struggle with why all of this gets under my skin. Since, I can’t hold a candle to the august lineup of luminaries and their words, and since Bari Weiss’ vision for Substack was an open marketplace of ideas, herein humbly presented a few observations:
Prof Wisse proclaimed that we have sovereignty. As Tonto is said to have asked the Lone Ranger, “What do you mean we, white man?” Notwithstanding, or perhaps because of the intensity and concern that characterize the so -called Kaplan Protests regarding the constitutional, political and social future of the State of Israel, I’m confident that Jews here in their State of Israel have sovereignty. What sovereignty is Prof Wisse referring to? She also argued that American Jews have agency. When American Jewish college students feel threatened, from whence will come their salvation? From the Jewish Federations, lawyers, a Jewish Defence League? Having lived my first thirty years in the US (perhaps Jews have morphed into a force to be reckoned with since I immigrated to Israel 44 years ago?), Jewish agency strikes me as close to non-existent in the Diaspora.
Rabbi Soloveichik waxed poetic about intertwined Jewish and American values and visions. Let’s see, it seems that America and Saudi now proclaim commonality in the way they see the world. Are American Jews going to use their agency to push the US not to betray Ukraine? And, if so, what influence would they have? Are they going to scold President Trump for his lovefest with Mamdani?
Liel Liebowitz assures the Jews that America will be just fine. Is the US going to avoid decline because its Jews will exemplify how a healthy democratic republic should function? Will Jews close the massive inequities of American society? Would the Tikvah Leadership Conference host Bernie Sanders as the Jew “showing the way?” Does Sanders get to say each morning, “thanks for not making me a Ggoy?
Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss, and Dan Senor think Judaism is a winning idea. Send kids to Jewish summer camps and day schools, learn Hebrew, participate in synagogue and community life. It’s American as apple pie! Peter Beinart also thinks and does all those things. Whose Jewish ideas are winning, his or the Tikvah Fund’s?
Language, as George Orwell laid out so effectively, is a tipoff to gobbledygook that serves psychological and political aims of those who purvey in it. An example would be the difference between Tikvah and Hatikvah, hope as opposed to the hope. The Tikvah Leadership Conference comes off as a flailing- protesteth-too -much attempt, notwithstanding the repeated reference to the huge challenges faced by American Jews, to present Judaism as an idea that will win out in the end. History shows that is true, if winning out includes narrowly surviving total extermination. Judaism as an idea calls for clarity and realism. HaTikvah is the clearest form of hope for the Jewish people. It is the Jewish contribution to preservation of Western democracy in the form of a sovereign state. There is a clear demarcation between Tikvah as an inevitably blurry conceptualization of Jewish destiny, and HaTikvah, which represents actual Jewish sovereignty and agency embodied in the State of Israel. In it, Jews are not grateful for being heaven’s tool for seeding the countries of the world with culture, humanity and democracy but simply for being Jewish.
As far as I can tell from the online material, the Tikvah Leadership Conference did not take up the idea of living in the country whose anthem is HaTikvah. When I pray “thanks for not making me a goy,” I may feel ambivalent about the degree to which it’s actually a blessing. But I’m thankful that things are clear in my Jewish world even if not always pleasant. It’s not about being thankful to be God’s chosen instrument to keep the West safe for democracy. It’s about Jewish sovereignty and survival full stop. Just a thought: is the blessing “thanks for not making me a goy” rightfully recited in the Diaspora in a world where there is a Jewish State?
Just asking.