"Religious people, led by their divine leaders, always know for sure what is the right way and which is the wrong one, who are the Sons of Light and who are the Sons of Darkness, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys....They have no doubt whatsoever; and yet doubt is the root of tolerance."

Fanaticism is a legitimate son of every religion; at least of the three monotheist ones, which I do know well enough. It is not the only son, but sure enough the ugliest one and the most dangerous one; most dangerous to his tolerant or tolerance-preaching brothers. (see under: Maimonides)

Religious people, led by their divine leaders, always know for sure what is the right way and which is the wrong one, who are the Sons of Light and who are the Sons of Darkness (see under: Dead Sea Scrolls), who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. They do not have any doubts. They do not ask too many questions. They have all the answers written in their scripts. They have no doubt whatsoever; and yet doubt is the root of tolerance. And the fundamental human doubt is whether there is God - as creator of the world and judge of mankind. Those who have a definite answer, one way or another, those who have no doubt at all, cannot be tolerant; even if they believe in tolerance as a virtue, even if they try. Such people always filled the streets and the markets and the palaces of Jerusalem, and they still do; their twentieth century wildly-growing Nationalism adding oil to the eternal burning fire of religion.

Lessons in Tolerance - of all places in the world, here in Jerusalem. Ironical, to some extent. On second thought, if we look only at the present time in this crazy Fin-de-Siecle - in what other city "Lessons in Tolerance" would not be ironical? in Belfast or Sarajevo? in Algiers or Kinshasa? in Kashmir or Phnom-Penh? in Managua, L.A. or Manhattan?

But still, one must admit that if we add the past and the future - the thick layers of Jerusalem's history and the thick fog on its future - this holy city might be a symbol of intolerance; not only between Jews and Arabs, religious and non-religious, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, Moslems, Christians and Jews, but even among Jewish Hassidic or Ultra-Orthodox groups themselves, throwing stones and curses on each other, full of hatred, disdain and condescension towards anyone who isn't "us". Similar relationships and atrocities can be found among different Christian and Moslem groups in this unique city.

Question: do people who suffered from intolerance become more tolerant, behave with more tolerance? Looking in the mirror - the Jewish mirror - the answer is definitely No. Sad, but true.

You can hardly find anybody, let alone any religion, who denies the importance of tolerance, but on this subject the gap between creeds and deeds is huge. For instance, pious Jews will tell you willingly and proudly about Rabbi Akiva who was asked to resumé Judaism in one sentence, and said: Love they neighbor as thyself. (In Europe there used to be a realistic addition: Love they neighbor, and don't forget to build a fence!) The same Jew would be reluctant to tell you that every year he repeats in the Pessah - (Passover) Haggada the controversial prayer to God: "Pour out thy wrath upon the nations that do not know thee." Such paradoxes can be found easily in scripts, sayings and prayers of all religions.

Question: Is there any improvement in human tolerance from generation to generation, from century to century? The answer is negative. The twentieth century has proven that totalitarian ideologies, such as Nazism or Communism, can be more intolerant and murderous than any religion. (see under: Auschwitz, Gulag, Bosnia)

Art is much more tolerant, open-minded, pluralistic. Artists can be intolerant and narrow-minded bigots. Many of them are. But art as such is tolerant. Only through art can we influence people to become tolerant; not only to praise tolerance and believe in it. The influence of art is slow but deep. It touches both heart and mind and connects them by unidentified pulses, translating conviction into behavior. Art can change and improve behavior, including tolerance. Tolerance has become a crucial factor concerning the future of mankind, especially in this nationalist era, when there isn't any state or nation without the problem of minorities and foreign immigrants.

Speaking of Art, let us use it. Let me read to you three short pieces of literature, written in a kibbutz in Upper Galilee, far away from the sacred stones and sites of Jerusalem.

The first is a short-short story, the shortest I've ever written. The second is a poem. Both of them were written years ago, after the death of my mother. Mother, who gave me so many lessons in tolerance and moderation. Mother, whose slogan was "too much is the twin brother of too little." She came from a family exiled from Spain and grew up in Aleppo, in a Mid-Eastern Sephardic moderate society where even the religious were relatively tolerant, compared to any Ashkenazic congregation.

---

Mother and Son

My mother, may she rest in peace, was a pure and pious woman. Her kitchen was kosher and her deeds were pure and kosher all the days of her life. She feared God and respected men, even if they did not always treat her kindly. Born to her in her old age, I was one of eight, one who went off to join a kibbutz. That I went - that she still could understand; others did the same. The more so because I came to this land at a young and tender age, and the new Eretz-Israel in-the-making left its mark on me. But that I stayed in the kibbutz and made it my home - that was beyond her grasp. She used to grieve about it in her heart, though scarcely did a word rise to her lips. She saw that this was my home, and so she made it also her own.

She used to wander from son to daughter and from daughter to son, rejoicing in the company of children and grandchildren, gracing them with her wisdom and her noble ways, drawing from them their freshness and youth and their zest for life. She fixed them tasty tidbits, and together with other spices she sprinkled-in sayings filled with a wisdom of life, which were sure to come in handy, God willing, when these tots grew up. She knew what views her grandchildren cherished, even if she did not always understand them. "God be praised" she used to say "not everything in His world was given to men to understand." And so she also came to the kibbutz a month or two out of the year. And between one visit and another she used to inquire who had born a child and who had tied the knot with whom and who had abandoned her work with the children and went to work in the laundry, and other such matters rife with interest.

Mother never deluded herself that the food we ate was kosher. And we who were not asked did not need to search for answers. Had she asked, we would have told her. And so she ate with us and thus she honored us, us and the way of life we had chosen for ourselves. If such was to be her son's life, it would be her own as well.

Once it happened that for a festive meal, to mark some occasion, a rich and mouthwatering pizza had been prepared. Layers of red and yellow and black, surrounded by mounds of golden dough. Mother put a slice on her place and pierced it with her fork and knife. And there, nestled in the bubbling yellow cheese - a chunk of sausage. My wife who sat across the table lowered her eyes and bit her lip. And I, stabbing the pizza with my fork and sawing-slicing it with a dull knife, plotted my response. Then we heard my mother saying calmly, "someone must have dropped a piece of sausage into the cheese. Never mind, such things happen." She pushed it aside and ate the rest. She pushed it aside, and brought us closer to her.

When my mother died, I did not worry what plea her soul might make before the Throne of Glory, for this one deed or others like it. When my time comes, I am ready and willing to go to whatever place the Heavenly Judge sent my mother. Would that my deeds make me worthy of it.

---

This is the end of the story - the written one - but not the end of the story. A week after it was published - a telephone call. A woman's voice, familiar, even heart-shaking, but forgotten. "Don't you recognize my voice? We used to be such good friends some...thirty years ago." She didn't use the appropriate word "lovers". She was extremely religious and that's why our ways separated. The next day she came all the way from Rehovot to Upper-Galilee, accompanied by her Kippa-wearing husband. "Aren't you ashamed, Amnon?" - she attacked right away, her beautiful eyes shining almost jumping out with anger "to say such things about your late mother. To shame her in public; in print?!" I was shocked, speechless. She became more and more aggressive, as she used to be when we were together. "I know your mother. She could not have done such a thing, and even if she did - you should not...."

This was clearly the conflict between tolerant Sephardic Judaism and fanatic Ashkenazic Judaism. My friend grew up in Frankfurt, far away from my Aleppo - the city where the descendants and some direct pupils of Maimonides preached his "middle way".

The problem of the Israeli multi-ethnical society is even more complicated than that. Being multi-ethnical and multi-cultural par excellence provides it with the credit of giving lessons to others. But, before indulging in that, and in the sake of Art, let me read to you a poem about my mother - written about the same time as the story. Its title is The Great Confession a title borrowed from one of the most important Yom Kippur prayers. It is a confession about not listening to my mother's lessons, and yet internalizing them.

---

The Great Confession

My mother
came to me
each
summer

her eyes weary from reading
her past overburdened
she'd recount
and relate

what didn't she talk
about
her voice melodious
as an 'oud
her palms clarifying
her bracelets tinkling
gold-to-gold
like the sayings
she spoke
undaunted by time

and I
was all closed
ears

absorbed in extricating
the kibbutz from a
mess
pressing ahead
and, who
(no, but really)
had time
for a mother

a curtain
between the sounds of her
yesterdays
and my ears
attune
to the din
of the collective
she tells of
Ben-Zeruyah
of the attributes
of amulets
and I
nod my head
appearing to listen

One summer
she
did not
come
and in the winter
she was released from
this world
and the burdens which are
part and parcel
of life

Spring passed
summer ended
and in the autumn
my hand
began
jotting down stories

I read them
and discovered
my mother's
world
a culture
departed

Perhaps
while my ears were
closed
my heart lay awake
perhaps
the words filtered through
in other ways

I wanted
to tell
my stories
to my mother
I wanted to hear
her tell
more and more
but my mother
who came
to me
each summer
(across the barrier)
had been ---
and gone

(translated by Judy Levy)

---

There are three different main streams in Israeli society, completely intolerant and disrespectful towards each other. One stems from Western Europe and America and has its roots in western culture. At the top of its scale of values are law and order. The second stream stems from Eastern European Jewry and its prevalent values are religion and morals. The third has Sephardi Oriental roots and at the top of its scale is the family; family, as an ethical value; family, the extended family, the clan, the ethnical group - above everything else. Any transgressor or breaker of the law - if he is "one of us", he will be defended wholeheartedly.

Each stream knows and accepts the whole complex of values, only partly mentioned here, but when there is a conflict between any two of the accepted values - and that happens daily on a personal, communal or national level - then it is the one on top of the scale that is the decisive one. And that is different for every stream. This is the core of most of our problems.

An extreme case of this aspect is Shas - the Sephardi Ultra-Orthodox party. Because of its oriental origins and the deep influence of the East European yeshivoth, law and order were pushed to the third place on their scale of values.

The roots of this conflict between values are ancient and universal. (see under: Antigone) The law of the gods versus law made by men - King Creon in that case. Add the fact that the man who had to be buried was Antigone's brother - family - and the complete dilemma is there: law, religion, family - which one prevails?

Since Sophocles such Greek tragedies occur now and then in every part of this planet. And the artists' part in each tragedy is that of the classic Greek Chorus: explaining, interpreting, mourning, consoling, sympathizing with the tragic figures; with no influence whatsoever on the events.

In our case it is now on our national cultural-political-ideological agenda. We are a new society in the making, with very deep roots in the past; an un-natural unusual past of a nation in exile. Our case can be a good lesson for others. Here people from more than a hundred countries meet. Here - unlike Kipling's India - East is East and West is West but the twain must meet; and do!

A few excerpts from my short story "Bells" will end my lecture. This is a real story, based on what happened to me when I was a kibbutz Shepherd in the early fifties. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the East came to the newly born state, and had to live in transit-housing-camps. The near-by kibbutz represented the West.

Bells

One summer's day when I was wandering with the flock, I saw two figures - a father and a son - coming towards me. They seemed to me like Abraham and Isaac. The man was old and venerable, the youth a mere boy. The man spoke and the boy translated. The man was sad and the boy was not happy.

"My father says that I am a good boy and that I love animals and that I can be of use and that he hasn't enough room and food for us all at the Ma'abara." "Do you really love animals?" He translated the question to his father. "My father says: of course." "And what do you say?" His large eyes almost popped out of his head. They lit up with a strange gleam. "What do I say? I don't know --" "Don't know; so what do you want?" "I don't want anything. I'm a kid." His explanatory palm remained outstretched before him. "And what does your father want?" Here a discussion developed between them. The Persian language on their lips was foreign and distant. "Ma'abara" and "kibbutz" were all I could make out. "My father says: if you take me to the kibbutz with you I'll learn to be a good shepherd. And ---" "and?" "He'll come and take me home every Shabbat. Almost every Shabbat, he says." "And is this what you want?" He translated the question to his father. "Yes, he... I want it. I agree. So that there'll be room for my brothers in the hut. The hut is small." "And they?" "They are small too, but many."

The father followed his son's translations with alert eyes and ears, proud of the little one's fluent Hebrew. I could see in his face that the language was not completely strange to him, that he also understood a little. I turned to him directly with a question.

"That you love your son is obvious. How can you give him to a complete stranger just like that?" And as if afraid of my own question I quickly added: "at his age he should be at school and not working." A warm, knowing smile spread over his face, as if to say: "I know you. Just what I was expecting." "You are a bespectacled, book-carrying Jew, mister" the child translated, "and even if he were to learn half of what you know he will grow up into a decent person. And I am not referring only to the sheep, if you get my meaning...." "And how do you know that I can be trusted?" Still listening, the father began shaking his head soothingly. He pursed his lips once or twice and said: "You won't beat him. You wouldn't even beat your own child." Here he blinked in a sort of wink, and added as if divulging a secret: "I've seen you guard the flock. I've been following you for three days. The boy looked at the sheep, and I - at the shepherd. Take him and God help you and be with him."

He caught his son by the shoulders and pushed him gently towards me. Without realizing what I was doing I put my hand on the boy's curly hair. And only then did I grasp that while I had allowed myself to be drawn into the conversation to find out the father's motives, I had neglected to ask myself the obvious question - what would I do with the boy? How would they react at the kibbutz?

Winter in the Galilee is difficult. And we went out to the pastures daily, whether in rain or hail, whether the mountains around us were white with snow or a gray dirty sky hung over us very low and the cold penetrated to the bone. On one of those days, with our boots sinking in the squelching mud and the rain beating down diagonally on our exposed faces and frozen noses, the boy came up to me and asked: "God brings the rain down, doesn't he?" - "Yes," I answered, protecting my face with my hand. "Then why can't he arrange it so that it should rain only at night?" I liked the idea at that hour under those conditions. But I wasn't in the mood for talk. "He could arrange a kind of automat that would turn the rain, hail, and snow on, only in darkness, no?" "He could." "But He doesn't want to." "I don't know." "He could also have arranged things so that there wouldn't be any poor people. It would be simple for Him." I was silent. "And so that there shouldn't be ma'abarot and diseases."

We bent our heads under the hailstones. A tinkling of bells came through the hard, cold hail's downpour like some sort of tidings. The flock crowded into a closed, tight circle, the head of one under the belly of the other, a cordon of fat tails all around.

"Why are there floods and disasters and things? Tell me, can't He or doesn't He want to?" My teeth chattered, I didn't know what to say. Through my wet glasses I saw large drops on his cheeks. His family had just lost a baby girl a few weeks old. I didn't know what of. I was ashamed to ask. I was afraid. "You on the kibbutz don't believe in God, I know. I believe in Him. But I don't understand Him. He could make a good world and He makes everything shit." "Not everything." "Have you ever been in our hut?" "No, I should really visit some time. Do you want...." "No!" "Look, you know as well as I that I don't exactly live in a palace." "It's not the same!" He shouted the four words. It sounded like the howl of a kleizmer's clarinet on the background of drums coming through the hail.

During the mating season we were not sure how far to bring him into the work. But he took it so naturally. He'd talk freely of the potent, smelly semen on the aprons and of the surprising virility of the ten rams who satisfied 500 sheep. He would encourage the leaping rams with excited heartfelt cries. What took place between ram and sheep did not in the least disturb him. What did disturb him was our interference in the matter. We explained that our purpose was to better the quality of the flock. He scratched his head and neck and muttered as if to himself: "If it's that efficient with sheep it must work for people too. And if it is not done with people, what right have we to do it to the sheep?"

His relationship with the women workers was complex. On the one hand he would not take orders from them, even if they were much older than him. When they did issue a command he'd either ignore it or skirt around it. But when they asked him to do something, he would go out of his way to comply. Like a real gentleman, it hurt him to see them carrying bundles of hay and picking up full milk cans. "Why should a woman be equal to a man?!" he'd pose his question, "It's not written in the Bible. And it's not right. Look at the sheep."

He had affection and awe for the kibbutz. "Good people," he'd say, "like family, like brothers and sisters, yet you don't quarrel." And he used to say: "Ashkenazim with gold-rimmed glasses working in the manure, singing. Honestly!"

When he grew up he put it still differently. "Show me another place in the world where an Ashkenazi with a brain in his head and a party member for a father, works with his hands, sweating like a donkey and everyone admires him for it." But with all the admiration and mutual affection, he knew and we knew that he would not want to be a kibbutz member. "I'm ready to do anything for the kibbutz," he once told me sincerely, "except live in it. And do me a favor, don't ask me why."

I didn't.

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