photo: Joice Kelly by unsplash
This Thanksgiving weekend we have cycled between despair and joy at the state of the world. The year 2023 has been framed by wars and rumors of war. In response, Almut’s recent post counsels us to battle our despair over the sorrows of the world by searching for joy in small things.
So I rejoiced to find an article by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman (a Jewish Minnesota native, by the way) who reports from Israel on the kaleidoscopic complexity of Israeli citizens who rushed to the aid of their fellow citizens who were attacked by Hamas on October 7. (You can click through to the article even if you do not have an account with NYT).
Consider Alaa Amara, an Israeli Arab bike shop owner, who donated 50 bikes to Jewish kids who survived the attack. Other Arab Israeli youths looted and set fire to his store in the middle of the night. And still other Israelis (both Arab and Jewish) raised enough money in the next few days to replace all the merchandise and rebuild the shop.
Friedman also highlights the heroic action of Israeli Bedouin Arabs who raced to save Jews on the morning of the attack, using their intimate knowledge of the land to avoid the roadblocks and roaming terrorist parties from Hamas. Some reported being discriminated against by Jews that same day and speaking up to educate them about the complexity they were missing. This complexity includes Israeli Bedouin women who are doctors in Israeli hospitals in Jerusalem, saving the lives of Jewish and Arab patients.
These are all heroes, doing work where they are, with the people and circumstances in which they find themselves. They know the tracks through the field, they know the family and the cousins, and the great-uncles of those they help, or of those who threaten them. They are also, Friedman says, the seeds of hope that keep alive the possibility of a realistic peace in the region.
I am grateful for those who bring us hope in desperate times. Not because they are messengers, but because they do actions of hope. In the places where they are, with the people they know, and with the skills they have. And part of Almut’s point of finding small joys is that this joy is the fuel that sustains us in doing actions of hope.
Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s personal secretaries, said late in her life, “I could have found out” even though she was in “a blind spot.” Junge was still in her early twenties when she took the job and worked for Hitler until his end in a bunker in bombed-out Berlin. She served in her post all this time, she said, while unaware of the great evil going on about her.
But she “could have found out.” This is true of all of us. With just a little curiosity, we could find out the need in our own communities. Real gratitude is grounded in curiosity about the other. What is the need here, how can I help?
So here is the consolation. Even when it all seems bad and given over to evil and brutality, there are the peace makers, those who do good where they are. We should be grateful for them. And here also is the challenge. We should not cherish our consolation without responding in action. We should be one of the peace makers, right here, just where we are. With a little curiosity, we can.
-Chuck, with Almut and Hannah
PS: In the last chapter of our new book Taking Moral Action (it just came out!!!) we explore the difficult path from good intentions to moral action. Moral emotions like gratitude are one of the guides to navigate this path. We also explain a bit more about Traudl Junge in the book’s Coda. The book came out of my research program following the life stories of moral exemplars.
A blessing
May God give us grateful and curious hearts
eyes ready to recognize our neighbors
ears eager to hear their stories
minds creative in shaping a response
so that we can be healers and peacemakers
and be healed in our turn
by gratitude.