My Life's Testimony
to
my Life's Learning

1982

2003

2011

How could Moses go on with the self-victimizing slaves?

He couldn't.
One day he screamed :

Moshe heard the peole weeping by their clans,
each-man at the entrance to his tent.
This time it was about not having the food they wanted.
He screamed in utter despair:

This sounds nice, doesn't it?
First he was given Aharon his brother as a partner.
No big help! On the contrary ~~ but that's another story.
But now he is given seventy people
from among those elders who saw the water magic.
They are initiated! They receive Moses' spirit.
But ---- Do we ever hear one word about any assistance Moshe got from them?
Leave alone the cooperation, collaboration, cocreation of partners
for which he yearned so much?

Chagall: "Moses, Aaron and the Elders"

p. 346 in the Hebrew edition of "All Israel vouchsafe for each other"

about the Zionist pioneers of freedom. Ancient Judaism gave me the direction and the basic approach, but Zionism provided me with concrete inspiration and practical strength. In Chaim Weitzmann I found a politician and a man of spirit who , as I feel, was made of the same material as Moses and as Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai [see Rabbis of the Mishna, chronology and hierarchy]. The following passages from Weizmann's autobiography "Trial and Error" , in Hebrew called: masa' u-ma'as, which were in front of my eyes and in my mouth always in those years, reflect, I think, an approach which is a direct application of the message of Judaism as I tried to grasp it in my research:

Of course: that Moses dared to take a non-Israelite wife,
worse! - a black wife -
was only the trigger,
which pointed out the hole in Maryam's wholeness,
the hole of Cain that said: "I'm not worthy!"
that screamed for being healed inside of her and by herself,

But my point here is the additional - black - wife.
Was there another wife before and who was she?

It was Tzippora, a Bedouin,
probably not exactly white herself.
Not much is said about her in the narrative of Moses,
but her character in "Prince of Egypt"
[s. also Sound-Tracks with stills from the movie , detected on July 30, 2011]
feels so real, so lovable,
that I, not usually fond of animated movies,
always see and feel this character,
when thinking of Tzippora.
With my grandkids I saw the video several times
- with the excellent Hebrew !!! soundtrack.
I can't imagine Moses, Miryam, Tzipporah talking and singing in English.

A single thread in a tapestry
though its color brightly shines
can never see its purpose
in the pattern of the grand design
and the stone that sits up on the very top
of the mountain's mighty face
does it think that it's more important
than the stones that forms the base
So how can you see what your life is worth
or where your value lies
ohhhh, you can never see through the eyes of man
you must look at your life
look at your life through heaven's eyes
lai-la-lai...through heaven's eyes(2X)
A lake of gold in the desert sand
is less than a cool fresh spring
and to one lost sheep, a shepard boy
is greater than the richest king
should a man lose everything he owns
has he truly lost his worth
or is it the beginning
of a new and brighter birth
So how do you measure the worth of a man
in wealth or strength or size
in how much he gained or how much he gave
the answer will come to ya
to look at his life through heaven's eyes
lai-la-lai...through heaven's eyes(2X)
and that's why we share all we have with you
though there's little to be found
when all you've got is nothing
there's lots to go around
No life can escape being blown about
by the winds of change and chance
and though you never know all the steps
you must learn to join the dance
you must learn to join the dance
lai-la-lai...through heaven's eyes(repeat until fade)

p. 347 in the Hebrew edition of "All Israel vouchsafe for each other"

"If you want - it's not a fairy-tale" [a saying of Herzl], they said then. Is there any nation in the world that experienced the truth of this sentence like us? People who revived a language and converted a society of employees and merchants into laborers of the land and artisans, and all the known mircles and wonders - is there yet another example in the world, that it is possible, yes possible to liberate oneself from the mentality of the victim and to be free people who realize "self-determination", who mold their destiny?
It is true - all this strength, all this freedom, all this self-determination that came from within and not from without, seems to be passed and gone. Once again we are this miserable nation that complains about the world hating us and attacking us. Once again we are not responsible for what happens to us. The others are to be blamed, the others are responsible, and we in our powerlessness can do nothing but one thing for ourselves and this is - to build an external armor, a blazon around ourselves, as do those soft animals which don't have a spine. The spine broke, probably in the holocaust and in the 1948 war. Who can survive the blood-draining, which was so deadly, physically and emotionally?
And despite of this, that's how I felt then and that's how I envision today [1982]: a nation, which has a concept of freedom as explicate and conscious, and whose experience of its strength is so concrete and close, such a nation definitely can raise a new generation that will raise its head anew, that will grow a spine anew , - that will manifest its freedom through the acceptance of its full responsibility for itself.

I began to teach. I taught the freedom and the strength of Zionism. Yet how could I teach without doing? Two months after the beginning of the academic year in autumn 1974, I finally launched an experiment of personal coping with one of Israel's problems, the very problem which seemed to be the most dangerous and urgent one: the conflict of interests between Jews and Palestinians and the psychological barriers between them.
The history of this work, which after 2 1/2 years established itself as "Partnership" ( "Union for creating the conditions for partnership between Arabs and Jews") would fill volumes, as well as the political philosphy called " the Partnership way" and all the principles and techniques which branch from it. The organization is still active (1982), mainly n the north of the country, and whoever wants to search through the archive which is with Abraham Lisod in Moshav Rishpon, can do so [Lisod died in 1991? what happened to the archive?]

I'll hint at the principles and the facts which are a kind of continuation of the message in the book.

In their continous coping with the fact of guarantorship the sages at their time demanded "PROTESTing " as a way of avoiding the behavior which leads to disaster. The method of protest is now used by all oppositionary movements in the world, and there were and are, indeed, impressive successes. On the other hand there are situations and many cases in which the protest pushes the adversary-enemy into self-defense and into hardening their position instead of changing it, as I already mentioned [see p. 326 above]

A certain event in June 1974, 10 years after my immigration, finally opened my eyes :
During a gathering of neighbors we disputed the land confiscations in the village Tira in the fifties.
[i.e. before the 1967 war! Since then -see the confiscations on the Westbank]. [As to Tira - since 1991, it has become a town of 22000] An escalation in the dispute took place and I threw into it the memory of the slaughter at Dir-Yassin. There were also new immigrants sitting with us, for whom Israel was still a "talit [a praying shawl] that's all blue"' as we say in Hebrew, and the other neighbors ran wild with fury. What had I done? I asked myself when coming home. Instead of convicing someone of the true self-interest of Isael and of her strength to reach this interest in a practical way, I caused the entrenchment of the people in their positions and a personal split between them and me.

p. 349 in the Hebrew edition of "All Israel vouchsafe for each other"

But today we don't live in a period of martyrdom. Today we live in a state in which there is freedom of action, and therefore we have to check if there are more effective means for realizing our responsibility than the way of protest.

Aleady a month before the above event I had published an article in the Kibbutz magazine "Shdemot" with the title: "Realizing Zionism today: Conquering partners" (a modification of the slogans of the practical Zionists: "Conquering the soil" and "Conquering Labor") [the articles is now inserted in bio-testimony 1 and 2] In this article I specified the approach which, too, had revealed itself to me in the sources of Judaism:
    "Who is a hero?"
asks Shim'on ben Zoma in "Pirke Avot " (4:1). And Midrasch "Avot de-Rabbi Natan" (p. 75) a kind of Gemara to "Pirke Avot", answers to this:
   "Who makes his hater his lover" [quoted in the famous song: the Children of Winter 1973]
Not who loves his enemy! But who - from the heart of his enemy/adversary - uproots the enmity and instead proves to him, that the two of them have a common interest.

How is this done? Here is the model for all times: Ya'acov who uprooted the enmity from the heart of Esau , his brother.
[this story has since been sculpted by me on healing-k.i.s.s and I'll translate my version of 1982 only after I'll have completed the 45 pages of this autobiography.]

A review that welled up tears:

"Prince of Egypt (1998)"
[July 30, 2011: To my regret the link is wrong, and I can no longer find the original site]
Even within the cramped perspective of 1999,
The Prince of Egypt is one of the best films of 1998, animated or not. It has inspired elaborate praise from many critics and moviegoers - which is fitting since Prince of Egypt is based on the Book of Exodus,
itself one of the most inspirational books
of the Old Testament.

The look of the film is amazing...
The angular character design, the virtuostic [?] camera work, and the interweaving of computer and cel [?] animation are enough to make the jaw drop in admiration. ....

What is perhaps most striking about the film is ... the masterful way the story unfolds,
the way each line of dialogue has been streamlined to its essence, the ... foreshadowing of future events
- all of these testify to the magnificent way
the film's directors have created their movie.
There is nothing transitional in the way the film looks or feels. Watching Prince of Egypt, one cannot believe that a tradition of serious,
animated epics does not exist in America.
And, yet, Prince of Egypt is the first of its type.

At the heart of Prince of Egypt
is the relationship
between Moses and Ramses.
The two men were raised as brothers,
but find themselves
pitted against one another in adulthood.
Conflicting emotions abound here,
as the two search for reconciliation
in the face of the inevitable consequences
of choosing different paths to follow.
Again, the depth one senses
in this humanized version
of the Biblical story
is... distinct from any American animated film.

"humanized version?"
It's true that the drama of the prince brothers
is not taken into account in the biblical drama,
though hinted at in the cry about
"YHWH struck down every firstborn...
from the first born of Pharaoh
who sits on his throne" [Exodus 12,29]
but isn't the drama of Moses with himself
"human" beyond anything sculpted as art?

There are no easy answers,
and although Moses delivers the Hebrews
from slavery,
can any story
in which two brothers
can no longer speak to each other
have a truly happy ending?

Prince of Egypt is a deep movie,
... It picks up the torch
that was dropped by Fantasia in 1940
and provides us with a form of storytelling
we never imagined.
Not only is the film an artistic triumph;
it may be a turning point of animation history.

Moses with Miryam and Tzippora

Plot Summary for The Prince of Egypt, (1998)

Egypt, eons of years ago:
Pharao Seti commands all male hebrew babies to be drowned.
A desperate mother places her son in a basket

and lets the Hebrew god guide it along its way on the river.
The basket is found by the Queen,

and Moses is brought up
as a brother to the heir of the throne, Ramses.
Years later, the brothers,
who grew up happily and wealthy,

are split by Moses' recognition
of his true heritage
and the suppressing system
his brother is about to inherit,
willing to carry it on.
Fleeing from the city in despair,
Moses finds himself being called by God.
He is given the task of being the messenger
in order to free the Hebrews
and to lead them into a country
where milk and honey flow.

On July 30, 2011 , I detected the lyrics of "Let my people go".
My heart pounded like hell, while I cried my heart out....

(CNN) - It's a cartoon of biblical proportions,
and the executive producer of
"The Prince of Egypt"
has something in common
with the story's hero.

Just as Moses stood up to the Egyptians,
Jeffrey Katzenberg now is standing up
to his former employers,
the Walt Disney Company,
by launching DreamWorks'
first full-length animated feature.

The animated story of Moses
is Katzenberg's brainchild,
who chose Val Kilmer to voice the lead role.
In addition to lending his voice to Moses,
Kilmer does double-duty as God.
And if you know the story of Moses,
then you'll quickly realize
the implications of this duality.
Since Moses talks to God,
Kilmer talks to himself.

"The Prince of Egypt" will try to attract
a wide demographic.
"Children will respond to this on a different level
than they normally respond
to animated movies,"
"They won't be entertained in the same way,
but it will make them curious."

"It's meant to be told to people, little kids,
and old people,
because it has different levels of meaning,
depending on where you're at,"

But the Prince is not like the king --
"The Lion King," that is -- or "Aladdin,"
among Katzenberg's triumphs
before his falling out at Disney.

"It's trying to change 70 years of perception
that an animated movie isn't a fairy tale
with dancing tea cups and ...funny camels,"

From another post in CNN, Nov. 1998:

"When I saw it
the wind was knocked out of me,"
says country singer... Wynona,
whose "Freedom" is featured
on the soundtrack.
"It was so beautiful and big.
I forgot it was animated
because it's brilliant and real-to-life.
This isn't anything I've seen before."

"Everybody that sat down
and watched this film,
whatever came to their heart,
they were able to write into a song
and sing it,"
"There's nothing an artist likes more
than being able to put their teeth
into singing something
that comes from the heart and soul."

Tzippora

p. 350 in the Hebrew edition of "All Israel vouchsafe for each other"

Inspired by this model I developed the "way of Partnership". It has to be applied to opponents inside the community just as it has to be applied to enemies outside. It cannot be that somebody makes war again his own people in order to make peace with the enemies of his people.

Here are one of the many phrasings of the premises of the Partnership-way:

1) The responsibility for myself:
     If I have a problem, its solution dependes on me!
2) Responsibility for my dependency on others:
    If the solution of my problem is connected to another person or another nation,
    then it's up to me to turn this man or nation into a partner!
3) Conditions for partnership:
    If I want to turn another person or nation into a partners
    I must convince him to keep up the common interest between me and him.
    I must take care of equality of self-respect between him and me
    and I must create mutual trust between us.

The realization of responsibility for my dependency on the community can be carried out on three levels: on the level of the infrastructure, on the level of public opinion and on the level of the decisionmakers. Since in the area of 'public oppionion' there are many others who work, we focused on the level of the infrastructure. During an entire year I developed a model, how the conflict of interests over land can be solved. This was the model of "Kfar Biram" in the Galilee. Nimr Ismair and I and other Jews and Arabs, worked with many experts , in economics and industry, in tourism and architecture. We took care of making participate all people in the region. We negotiated with the government in the Partnership Wway. Until this day this model is relvant, yet the process of its realization in the case of Bir'am was cut of because of a change of government.

Later we focused on creating models for the removal of psychological barriers between the people - fear, contempt, feelings of inferiority, feelings of guilt, self-victimisation and more. In the years which preceded this work I acquired knowledge and multi-faceted experience in psychology and felt skilled to act as facilitator in the workshops which we organized - for instance the "mobile" workshops between a Kibbutz and a Moshav and an Arab village - and in training facilitators who later worked during encounters between school classes and summercamps for children.

At the beginning of 1980 we , Rushdi Fadila and I travelled to the United States for a Partnership tour among Jewish , Christian and Arab commuities. During the one hundred lectures and talks we brought the audience towards coping with our alternative way, the Partnership Way, to the realization of their responsibility for their dependency on what happens in the Middle East

As a result of the tour I began to work on the level of "the Decisionmakers". I initiated a campain which we called "Palestinain-Jewish Initiative". Its purpose was to bring about an event which would act like a psychological shock as did the initiative of Sadaat, which would first of all pull out the two nations from their victimhood, and would give them faith and trust, the lack of which until now made fail every proposal of solution from the start.

And then, in the framework of the transformations which took place also in my personal life, I saw that the time had come to retreat.
The conclusion from all this enormous endeavor - about 50 hours a week, without a salary, for more than five years - was one: there is not a lack of Jews and Arabs who see, that it is possible to achieve the common self-interest - which is to live in this land - only, if at least one of them will accept responsibility for its dependency on the other nation and convert this damaging dependency into a beneficial dependency, i.e. a partnership.

Yet the real enemy of Jews and Arabs together, an enemy whose many different grimaces I discerned in all camps, and also inside the organization "Partnership" itself - is the feeling of powerlessness! Everyone makes himself a victim to others - the nations, the governments and the "fighters for peace":
    "Until you' my enemy or opponent, won't make the first step (recognize me! give up terror!     give up territories! etc), I, poor me, powerless, am not free, I've no choice but to fight!"
If you can subdue your enemy or opponent with the force of arms, and not only temporarily, but on the long range, how good! but if not? If you continue to be dependent on him? how will you realize your value of "self-determination", of "freedom", of the will to be master of your destiny, if you do not accept responsibility also for your dependencies on others?
     The belief in his power to stand up to his enemy "face to face" was also missing in Ja'acov's      heart. [continuation: bio-testimony 5]