Failure and the Future
This week, on Wednesday, November 4th, the Jewish world will mark the 20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. A central figure in modern Israeli history, Rabin served as Israel’s prime minister, minister of defense and was a signatory to the Oslo Accords. As we all know from the current violence in Israel, that framework agreement, designed to create a peace process and lead to permanent status negotiations, did not usher in a fully realized peace.
Rabin’s assassination by Yigal Amir, a Jewish extremist , was a crucial turning point that sent shock waves through Israel. For many, it spelled an end of hope and the beginning of despair. It represented a failure in Israel’s body politic, much as President Kennedy’s assassination made Americans question the nature of our society.
We will hold a special program for our Tichon students on the actual anniversary date. This will include recollections from some of our Israeli teachers, a short video and a contemporary musical tribute, as well as some dialogue training for our youth. While there are rarely single fixes for our complex problems, communication is an essential part of any solution. This promises to be an educational and compelling session, and I am proud that we will be bringing this high quality programming to our high school students.
- To share love and life with all beings, but especially with the human being, an erring creature endowed with free will.
- To offer these human creatures tools for using their free will in a manner that will elevate them and help them achieve their full potential for love, connection, self-expression and holiness with themselves, Me and all of My creation.
- To share these tools, which include principles of ethics, justice, celebration and connection with all humanity.
- To package and distribute these tools in a blueprint for life, known as the Torah (but available in other formats also).
- To provide concrete action plans, known as mitzvoth, so that the end user can properly learn to operate the supplied tools, and to provide on-line and real time support in a global network of retail outlets (synagogues, churches, mosques, etc.).
- To provide “haptic feedback” to end users when they make bad choices.
- To exercise institutional divine patience and allow a long learning curve for failure until this culture change occurs both in the retail outlets and in the larger marketplace of humanity.