The year 1977 was a very turbalant year in the history of Israel. Little did I know at the age of 17 that the most memorable thing I will be writing 31 years later about that year will not have anything directly to do with an election that changed the face of Israel, what I did the night of that painful dissilusion, or the many things that happened to me since that can be attributed to the events of that year. The victory of Menachem Begin and the nationalist ideology over Shimon Peres and the social-democratic labor incumbency shook the pillars of the earth. Some saw this as the dimming of the lights over the State of Israel. I was a very political teenager who spent many hours living and breathing the international labor movement that will eradicate all oppression and lead the world to an “imagine” style existence – no possessions, no religion, no countries… you get the picture.
Stuff that stays with you forever
Obviously all blame within the “movement” was pointed towards the lack of idealism, individual gain over the interest of the group and other archaic thoughts that from distance of time and geography seem so naive (yet I still hope that a day will come when their offspring will have a second coming). One program that resulted from this need to strengthen the moral conviction of the youth is the one that had the strongest impact on me. A small group (no more then ten if my memory serves me right) was offered to have a six meeting seminar with Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz. In these meetings he talked to us about personal moral standards, immorality of military occupation, religion and science, total separation of state and religion and probably a few other topics in his so provocative and blunt way (This was the guy who labeled the behavior of soldiers in the occupied territories as Judo-Nazi) .The mismatch between the philosophical genius / moral beacon 74 year old and a group of teenagers was so evident that by the third meeting there were only two of us left, the program was cancelled and we failed our mission to reverse history – but mine changed.
The meetings were held on the lawn of the Givat Ram campus of at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the visual of the old man with his white shirt, black pants almost up to his chest, huge black skullcap siting on the summer grass with a bunch of kids is still vivid in my mind.
Memories of this encounter usually come to me in two contexts:
When I look at my kids or other young people and try and think if an experience they are having will stay with them forever and how do I not screw it up for them?
When I evaluate my own morality and ask myself if I was worthy of four hours of this man’s life?
