Well???....Just Do It!

First one arrived...and then another, and another and...they don't just come to me, they probably came your way as well for one reason or another, we all know them I am sure... I call them the "fence kids", although they have not been kids for years. 
These are those dear people we all know who simply have a terrible time at deciding to initiate an action

One more test, one more postponement, need to ask one more person... and the answer is really rather simple: he who does nothing does not make mistakes, self-criticism can be much more devastating on something you did and did not fare well, then the criticism you dish out to yourself on something you did NOT do. In many cases, these fence-sitters know that it is better to act but the whole process simply overwhelms them and so they just let it ride...and ride...and ride...

Not only individuals can find themselves in such situations- organizations and nations can be much the same. 
Just observe the negotiation process between Israel and the Palestinians that went on for 9 months with no results- why? Who is afraid to take decisions?

The thing is this- cost/benefit- the minute our friendly fence-sitters will decide that the mistake of not doing anything becomes greater than the mistake of doing something and having it fail, then and only then will we see some serious "fence disengagement". 
Until then...we shall wait...and wait, and..

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You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.  (Mahatma Gandhi)

When Arabs and Jews Meet to talk about... Parents and Kids

Two weeks ago, a few days before a meeting of the group in our house, I told my dear daughter, 21 and currently an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, that later that week we will have a meeting of about 20 people in our living room, about half of whom will be Arabs, and we will be talking about "Parents and Kids". 
She asked me somewhat blandly without thinking too much about what I had just said, (not unusual in that I was probably competing for her attention with some "What's App" conversation- or two or three- at the time), "What do Arabs and Jews have to do with parents and kids?". 
When I explained the reasoning behind it all, she ended up nodding her head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world...but that is just it, it is NOT so obvious, in fact NOTHING is obvious when it comes to Arabs and Jews in our region!!

As I see it, one of the many maladies we suffer from in our neck of the woods is the massive alienation that we have one from the other, we are all very quick to line up behind "our flag", our team, our answers to the usual questions, without really trying to examine, learn what is "out there"...our identification is too narrow in my mind, we tend to forget that any "identity" we think we have is really an amalgamation of all kinds of influences and various segments that impact this identity, be it religion, personal experience, education, geographical location, socio-economic level, among others. 
We tend to forget or ignore the identity that in my eyes is above all others- that of "the human being". 
As such, when Arabs and Jews get together they have so very much to talk about, provided that the environment is one of openness, curiosity, mutual learning, mutual trust and respect. 
When this happens, what I have seen on many many occasions is that suddenly things get really interesting, because the "human side" comes forth, far away from the political debate (which has its place, of course, but not in our frame for the group). When we can all set aside these "flags " of ours and enjoy the conversation, interaction and learning we find the "human being" in our presence and THAT to me is much more interesting...

That is precisely the philosophy behind the inter-cultural meetings group that I have recently set up along with my friend and Arabic teacher, Dr. Yosef Bashara,  a group we call "Tashaa", which is the initials in Hebrew for "Different Cultures, One Humanity". The group meets once a month in the homes of its members, from the Jewish towns in the Sharon area and the Arabic towns in the Triangle. 
Each meeting always has a new topic for discussions, new opportunities to meet new people and to get to know better those whom we have already met. It is an opportunity framed to help us learn about the "other", but in fact, we always end up learning more and more about ourselves as well...

During the last meeting, I showed a video clip of Prof. Chaim Omer, a well-known psychologist in Israel who has written extensively about "how to rehabilitate parental authority". 
With that trigger in the room I opened up the conversation: how much and how far can we and should we go in protecting our children from unlimited information and messages that stream unyieldingly into their lives via internet, television and smarthphones?; How do we balance our need to know, protect and shelter and the effect that this might have on our communication with our kids? 
The responses were fast in coming, the interesting thing being that suddenly it was not clear who was the "conservative Arab" and who was that "liberal Jew", as everybody had a different vantage point, a different approach, a different experience and a different point in which they were confused, or ambivalent or just simply not aware. While it was clear that the Arabs in our group were dealing with a much more conservative society, it was not at all clear what was our individual "take home message"- when to trust and when to be wary, when to push ahead and when to let go, what may be differences between boy and girls, where is the technology the issue and when is the technology a barrier to understanding the bigger questions. 
"Take home messages" are never closed-ended and THAT is the beauty of such conversations, they are open-ended, stimulating and help us think with blinders, talk without flags, listen with our hearts and not just our minds. 
Suddenly we were no longer 17 Arabs and Jews but 17 human beings discussing the very day to day of challenges in our lives...

During the second part of the evening we want in the opposite direction: if previously we had talked about us as parents to our kids, this time it was us as kids to our parents! An interesting TED clip stimulated our brain neurons to learn about how old age is dealt with across various traditional cultures and then we took it home to US...how do we deal with our elderly? 
Not a philosophical question at all but a very practical one, we immediately launched into seeing where this touched as all: one member spoke about having to forego an opportunity to do a post-doctoral term abroad as he is the eldest son with elderly parents, he spoke of the challenge to bridge the desire for professional development with the commitment of parental responsibility. 
Another participant spoke of the difficulty in dealing with this issue with his siblings, as it has surfaced many issues she was not ready to tackle; traditional approaches mixed in with modern ones, economic needs confronting aspirations for personal growth and development...no clear-cut answers, many poignant questions and life-situations...

I personally believe that deep down we all know what is best for us, although it is not always clear and out in the open, by all means. When we allow ourselves the time and place to listen to others, to interact and to share experiences and questions with others who are not necessarily coming from where we are coming from, we enable a type of growth that we could not have done previously. 
It is not a growth in which we find only Jews or only Arabs but a place where we engage with people, some who are Arabs and some who are Jews. 
It is a a place of "Different Cultures and One Humanity".