Erezology.: Hagshama and Dissonance: Yom Kvutza (1-10-2010)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hagshama and Dissonance: Yom Kvutza (1-10-2010)

Throughout the movement, a word you will almost always hear is the word "Hagshama. The translation for Hagshama is actualization, however the word has taken on an entire new meaning in Habonim Dror, in fact it is one of the five pillars of HD.When throughout my time in the movement the word has always had a simple, but important meaning to me: stop sitting around and do whatever you need to do. Of course that's important, but on Workshop, in sichot which happen quite often the word has taken on the meaning of actualizing, in terms of Garin Aliya. (See Kvutza Yovel.)
In A recent Yom Kvutza, we discussed the role of dissonance, in relation to Hagshama. Here is a copy of the text we read, by an unsure author.

The element, which unites the two categories of values, is the elimination of the dissonance between my ideal reality and the day to day activism which inspires me. The complete elimination of this dissonance would be an impossible dream, so Hagshama is not a particular point to get to however it is a constant striving and a struggle for better. Hagshama is a value in and of itself. THe desire to eliminate the dissonance and the decision to act and live according to my ideals is also a value becuase what is being actualized (Hagshama) must be constantly reassessed. In summary this is the conflict between my judgment and my will.
In the path to Hagshama there is another conflict and this is the conflict between my values and the reality in which I live, which consists of the human, social, political and physical realities. The reality on the ground does not determine my ideals, in fact the opposite because the current reality was not constructed according to my ideals. In the best case I can change the reality to bring it closer to the ideal to which I strive. For this reason I must constantly struggle to decrease the difference between the reality and my ideals.

He who does not wish, or is unable to live with this constant struggle must give up on either his values or their actualization. Values for which no attempt is made to actualize them are only dreams. These dreams may be beautiful but they are bankrupt. Dreaming a dream can sometimes be an excuse for one to abdicate responsibility from implementing it. An example of this is the Jewish dream of the arrival of the Messiah for which generations of Jews said Bashana Haba'a B'Yerushalayim Habnuya(next year in the built Jerusalem) but remained in exile. The generation of Jews who said "At the end of the days...they will turn their swords into plowshares" while all the while people greeted one another brandishing raised swords. The expectation of the End of Days and fear of Judgement Day are two sides of the same coin, a miracle or a holocaust neither of which depend on me. Even the most beautiful dream possible does not change the world. Trading Hagshama with all of the complexity and imperfection involved for the dream in all its purity is tantamount to pronouncing the reality dead.
A social movement which does Hagshama and does not want to atrophy and die must constantly reassess its values, to study the changing reality and to fight to implement its values in a changing world.

After going through this text, I realize a few things. What is the point of Hagshama without dissonance? If, in a perfect world, those who accomplish Hagshama in Israel, or in the world fix all problems, then what? where do we go from there? Dissonance is something that does, and will always exist. Because without it, we will have nothing to strive for. However, as long as this dissonance does exists, we cannot simply accept it,we must do what we can to actualize on what we believe are the needs of the hour. As the great Mukki Tsur says, if you reach to much, and not for what is right in front of you, you will get your dreams crushed. Our reality does not match up with our ideals, but this dissonance is the point of Hagshama. Additionally, because of this dissonance, our ideals must constantly be reassessed, over and over again, in order to see what it is that we really value.
yayy for Haghshama! More about Hagshama will happen once I find a way of fixing our broken computer!

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The Secret of the youth movement: By Zivia Lubetkin.

"The Zionist pioneer-youth movements took on the responsibility of all Jewish public life, a bit too late perhaps, during the most difficult days. I believe that one does not have to probe too far to find the answer. It would be wrong, painfully wrong to assume that the resistance displayed by the youth during the stormy days of destruction was the response of a few individuals, or Yitzhak, or Zivia, or Mordechai, or Frumka. We have lived and still live with the conviction that our fate would have been very different had we not been members of the Movement, if we had not observed the values that it gave us from childhood.

This is the real secret of the Movement's strength. The movement always knew how to demand everything from its members. The Movement's goal has always been to educate a new kind of man, capable of enduring the most adverse conditions and difficult times while standing up for the emancipation of our people, of the Jew, of mankind. It was our Movement education which gave us the strength to endure.

I don't know if I succeeded in describing how much we tried to live up to those values. I did mention how we were almost obsessed at the time with preserving the unblemished personal morality of each of our members as individuals, and of the movement as a whole.

What gave us this moral strength? We were able to endure the life in the ghetto because we knew that we were a collective, a movement. Every other Jew faced his fate alone, one man before the overpowering, invincible enemy. From the very first moment until the bitter end, we stood together, as a collective, as a movement, a community of people who cared about each other, who shared ideas and values in common, made it possible for each of us to do what we did. "

Glossary:

Epic: Workshop slaying for something along the lines of really really cool, incredible, amazing, etc...
Borris: Landlord
Ideology: Critique:Our criticism of our reality. What do we think are the most important problems to solve? What do we see in our community which we most want to improve?->Vision:Our ideal reality. How do we think things should be? What do we think is right for our community/country/world? Why? (Global ex: Peaceful relations. Community example: RIch Jewish identity.)->Method/Praxis: How do we get from point A to point B? Global Example: Change the way people relate to each other violently or by peace and dialogue education, while simultaneously demonstrating outside the embassies of warring countries, insisting that they stop their violent behavior. Community ex: Weekly educational meetings for Jewish youth about their history, language, religion, culture, land and people, while simultaneously being active in getting Jews to live in and develop a Jewish state.
Movement: A Tnua/movement is a group of people who share such an ideology and try to realize it in reality, (Hagshama.)
Habonim Dror's past Hagshama: HD's Hagshama has resulted in the building and development of about 50 kibbutzim around Israel. The following are some which have been built and developed by HDNA, HDUK, and HDNL: Kfar Blum, Mayaan Baruch, Kfar Hanassi, Ami'ad, Yizreel, Bet Ha'emek, Gesher Haziv, Mevo Hama, Tuval, Gezer, Kvutzsat Yovel, Kvutsat Ogen, Kvutsat Aseef.
Dugma Yeshit: An embodiment if who you are, what you believe in. Having your actions represent who you are. With that said, its your responsibility to be a dugma and set an example of who I am. Above all, Dugma yeshit is living up to your ideals.
Kvutza: A group of individuals who live and work together who provide a support system for one another. The role of the kvutza in HD is to challenge, support and push each individual. The Kvutza I am part of is GnG, standing for Gill and Gozal. (This is only temporary until we choose a new name.)
Madrich: The litteral translation from the hebrew word, derech, is "way." The madrich in the kvutza, (GIll and Gozal for us.) helps monitor the kvutza's growth and pushes each individual. The madrich shows chanichim the way to be a productive human being.
Chanich: From the hebrew word chinuch, which translates to education. Its the chanich's roleto learn and become educated, as well as to educate the madrich, and make a mutual partnership the two where each person leans from the other. Just becuase you are a madrich doesnt mean you cant learn.
Peula: A discussion ran and facilitaterd by a madrich, or rakaz. Done in the style of informal education to ensure that unique discussion are created and so that there is no hierarchy.
Shutaf: Partner
Sicha: Discussion.
Shiyur: Daily class ran by a rakaz. Generally done in peula format.
Rakaz: Hebrew word defined as coordinator. The rakazim on workshop coordinate the peulot we have, as well as ligistical arrangements. Also do things such as coordinate avodah and siyurim.
Yom Kvutza: A day where the madrichim run intense peulort, or fun activities in order to make the chanichim in the kvutza gain better insight to one another, think about things on a new level, and to create a more comforting enviornment in the kvutza.
Messima: Translated to "mission," However in our lives it refers to our mission of serving Israeli communities through work with Hanoar Haoved V'Halomed. G&G messimot are in Cholon, 2 in Yaffo, and one in Givat Olga.

Inspirational Quotes:

"We had one weapon-

the great ideal,

readiness and devotion."

Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman.

“And when you, O human, will return to Nature, that day your eyes will open, you will stare straight into the eyes of Nature and in its mirror you will see your image. You will know…that when you hid from Nature, you hid from yourself…We who have been turned away from Nature – if we desire life, we must establish a new relationship with Nature.”-A.D Gordon.
"Modern capitalism needs men who co-operate smoothly and n large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience-yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim-except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function.
What is the outcome? Moderen man is alienated from himselt, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investmet which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions. Human relationships are essentialy those of alienated automatons, each bringing his security on staying close to the herd, and not being different in though, feeling or action. While everybody tries to be as close as possile tp te rest, everybody remains utterly alone, pervaded by the deep sense of insecurity, anxiety and guilt which always results when human seperateness cannot be overcome. Our civilization offers many palliatives whilch help people to be conciously unaware of this aloneness: first of all the strict routine of bureaucratized, mechanical work, which helps people to remain unaware of their most fundamental human desires, of the longing for transcendence and unity. Inasmuch as the routine alone does not succceed in this, man overcomes his unconscious despair by the routine of amusement, the passive consumption of sounds and sights offered by the amusement industry; furthermore, by the satisfactions of buying ever new things, and soon exchanging them for others. Modern man is actually close to the piture Huxley describes in his Brave New World: well fed, welll clad, satisfied sexually, yet without self, without any except the most superficial contact with his fellow men."
-Erich Fromm.
"Under capitalism man is controlled by a pitiless code of laws which is usually beyond his comprehension. The alienated human individual is tied to society in its aggregate by an invisible umbilical cord-the law of value. It is operative in all aspects of his life, shaping its course and destiny.
The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller-whether or not it is true-about the possibilities of success.
The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such a magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make people in general see this...
In any case the road to success is pictured as one beset with perils but which, it would seem, and individual with the proper qualities can overcome to attain the goal. The reward is seen in the distance; the way is lonely. Further on it is a route for wolves; one can succeed only at the cost of the failure of others.
I Would now like to try to define the individual, the actor in this strange and moving drama of the building of socialism, in his dual existence as a unique being and as a member of society.
I think it makes the most sense to recognize his quality of incompleteness, of being an unfinished product. The sermons of the psat have been transposed to the present in the individual consciousness, and a continual labor is neccessary to eradicate them. The process is two-sided : On the one side, society acts through direct and indirect education; on the other, the individual subjects himself to a process of conscious self-education.
The new society being formed has to compete fiercly with the psat. The latter makes itself felt in the consciousness in which the residue of an education systematically oriented towards isolating the individual still weighs heavily, and also through the very charecter of the transitional period in which the market relationships of the past still persist. The commodity is the economic cell of capitalist society; so long as it exists its effects will make themselves felt in the organization of production and, consequently, in consciousness..."
-Che Guevera.
"There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say."-Martin Buber.
" The true Chalutz is a union of the emancipation of the individual and the emancipation of the nation. For the first time since the Jewish people were exiled, there is a resolution to the problem of the Jewish nation. The resolution comes in the form of a new being, a new Jewish person."-Martin Buber.
"There can be no true education if it is not permeated by a central idea. In its everyday life, of work and creation, our youth is nourished from the central idea of the new Jewish history. From it they draw their strength and mission."-Berl Katzelson.

Insipirational Zionists:

Nahman Syrkin: Born in Belorussia, Nahman Syrkin;s early Jewish education was provided by private tutors. WHen the family moved to minsk in 1884, he went to a Russian high school. He joined the Hovei Zion there, while also maintaining contact with Russian revolutionary circles. In 1888, he was arrested, after which he went to London and the Berlin, where he stuied psychology and philosophy. At the age of 19, he began writing on both academic and Zionist subjects. Syrkin tried supporrting himself and his family by writting, but eventually gave up and returned to pillosophy, publishing his doctoral thesis in Bern in 1903. A leader of the Socialist ZIonists at the First Zionist Congress, Syrkin was also an early sponor of the concept of the Jewish National Fund, and submitted a resolution to this effect at the Second Zionist Congress in 1898. Syrkin was banishe from Germany in 1904, spent some time in Paris and, after the 1905 revolution, went to Russia where he continued to work with the Zionist-Socialists, as they called themselves. He emigrated to the United States in 1907, eventually joining the Poalei Zion and returning to the Zionist Organization. He remained the leader of this American Poalei Zion until his death. In 1919, Syrkin was a member of the American Jewish delegation to the Versailles Peace Confrence which followed the end of WW1. The same year, he was the key figure in the World Poalei ZIon Conference in Stockholm, which assigned him the task of heading a study comission to visit Palestine to draw up a plan for mass cooperative settlement. Returning to the U.S, he intended to settle in Palestine, but died suddenly of a heart attack. In 1951, his remains were moved to Kibbutz Kinneret along with other founders of Labor Zionism.
Aaron David Gordon: A.D. Gordon was born in 1856 in Podolia, Russia to a pious family who were related to the magnate Baron Horace Guenzburg. After his marriage, Gordon was given responsibility for the management of a large tract of land which was rented out for farming. However, after the lease ran out in 1903, Gordon looked for new employment. Whilst he had been involved in Hovevei Zion there was little expectation that he would emigrate to Eretz-Israel and become an agricultural laborer especially given his relatively advanced age forty-seven. Nonetheless, Gordon decided to come to Eretz-Israel and begin a life of agricultural labor first in Petah Tikvah, later in Rishon Le-Zion and finally making his home in Degania, the first of the kvutsot. It should be remembered that Gordon had been a white collar worker all his life and had no experience of agricultural labor. However, he believed that physical effort on the land would not only bring about his personal redemption but also that of the Jewish people. He attributed pioneer work a semi-religious status, arguing that it created an organic interrelationship between the man, the land and culture. Gordon became the inspiration for a generation and more of Labor Zionists who saw in his example a way to personal and national fulfillment. A number of youth movements were influenced by his teachings and one, Gordonia, took his name as the rallying call for their work. Gordon died in 1922 and was buried in Degania where he had lived during his final years.
Moses Hess; Father of Socialist Zionism: Born in Bonn, Hess remained there to be educated by his orthodox grandfather, when his father moved to Cologne for business reasons. At age 14, he joined his father in Cologne. Hess studied Philosophy at the University of Bonn in 1837-1839, but did not graduate. Hess helped found the first socialist daily newspaper in cologne, and became its paris correspondent at the end of 1842, moving to Belgum in 1845 where he was active in communist activities, and returning to paris in 1848. In 1849, he took refuge in Switzerland. Two years later he moved back to Belgum, and in 1853, he moved back to Paris where he lived the remainder of his life. After his fathers death in 1851, Hess' inheritance provided the basis for an independent lifestyle, including marriage to his Christian companion. He lived in Germany from 1861-1863, where he published his first work "Rome and Jerusalem." a classic Zionist theory. At the end of 1863, he returned to Paris where he contributed to a number of Jewish and other publications. He was also the Paris correspondent for several socialist newspapers in the U.S and Germany. A Prussian subject, Hess was expelled from France at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war. He moved to Belgum, but returned to Paris after the war, began another philosophical work, and died there. According to his wishes, he was burried in the Jewish cemetery in Deutz near Cologne. In 1961, his remains were moved to Kibbutz Kinneret.
Ber Borochov: Borochov: Born in Ukraine, Borochov was educated in a Russian high school. A good student, he was attracted by the revolutionary socialist trends of the time. Like ost Jewish high school graduates, he was denied the chance to study at a Russian university. He was largely self educated, and spoke several languages. In 1901, his interests in Jewish problems led him to establish the Zonist Socialist Workers Union. Active in Jewish self-defense, the organization was opposed by both the Russian Social Democrats and some of the Zionist leaders who disapproved of the combination of Zionism and Socialism. During the controversy about the possibillity of setting Jews n Uganda, Borochov joined with Menahem Ussishkin in opposing any territory other than Eretz Yisrael. At the Seventh Zionist Congress (1905), Borochov led a faction of the Poale Zion delegates who opposed the uganda option. At the Eigth Zionist Congress, two years later, he was instrumental in the withdrawl of Russian Poalei Zion from the Zionist Organization. From then until the begining of WWI, he publicized the aims of the World Union of Poalei Zion in Western and Central Europe. In 1914, Ber Borochov arrived in the United States, where he was the spokesman for the American Poalei Zion and for the World and American Jewish Congress movements. When the Russian Revolution began, he returned to Russia and helped formulate the demands of the Jewish people for the postwar world order. He was intensely involved in public activities leading up to the October Revolution. In August 1917, he addressed the Russian Poalei Zion Conference and called for socialist settlement in Eretz Yisrael. Borochov was on a speaking tour on behald of Poalei Zion when he contracted pneumonia and died in Kiev. In 1963, his remains were reinterred in the cemetery at Kibbutz Kinneret, alongside the other founders of Socialist Zionism.
Theodor Herzl: The father of modern Political Zionism., born in Budapest in 1860. Herzl first encountered the anti-semitism that would shape his life and the fate of the Jews in the twnentieth century while studying a the uniersity of Vienna. (1882). Later, during his stay in Paris as a Journalist, he was brought face to face with the problem. At the same time, he regarded the Jewish problem as a social issue, and wrote a drama, the Ghetto, in 1894, in which assimilation and conversion are rejected as solutions. He hoped that the Ghetto would lead to debate and ultimately to a solution, based on mutual tolerance and respect between Christian and Jews.

Erezology.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hagshama and Dissonance: Yom Kvutza (1-10-2010)

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Analytics

The Secret of the youth movement: By Zivia Lubetkin.

About Me

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Boneh Gan!!!