Dear Brandeis community,

 

Israel and the worldwide Jewish community lost an outsized figure this week in Shimon Peres—a great public servant and statesman, a true change maker, and a seeker of peace. In reading through the outpouring of memory that has followed his passing, I came across a fascinating piece in Haaretz that celebrates the “Countless Contradictions” of Peres’s life and work. In it, the author cites Nietzsche’s dictum leading an impactful life:

 

One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one remains young only on condition that the soul does not relax, does not long for peace.

 

Certainly it was a restless soul that allowed Shimon Peres to do so much work across so many different public offices for Israel. But where my mind went upon reading this piece was to Walt Whitman’s iconic section of “Song of Myself,” perhaps the single clearest statement of his poetics:

 

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

 

Whitman’s contradiction is the contradiction of democracy, of many voices becoming one; it is equally the contradiction of Shimon Peres’s work, of the paradoxical relationships between defense and peace.

 

This trio of lines is usually quoted together, without the line that follows:

 

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

 

But that fourth line, though perhaps less memorable in its phrasing, is hugely important in understanding the why of these contradictions. The work of containing multitudes is the work of the future; we find a path forward in the challenges and disjunctions of encountering difference. Whitman was always a future-focused poet (e.g. his beautiful “Poets to come!”), just as Peres did his work with an eye toward a more stable and just peace for Israel.

 

This seems especially important not just in the mode of memory and appreciation, but also in the mode of preparation, as we look ahead to Rosh Hashanah. In looking ahead to the High Holidays, I have been reading through the brilliantly titled This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Rabbi Alan Lew (of blessed memory), a book suggested to me first by Tania Lowenthal. In it, Rabbi Lew writes: 

 

The great journey of transformation begins with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. It is not something we are undertaking for amusement, nor even for the sake of convention; rather, it is a spiritual necessity. And our need to be more conscious—to awaken from the deep dream that has held us in its thrall—is always there.

 

As I consider the journey ahead, and the work we are doing with our children to prepare them for it, I am grateful for the examples of contradiction and complexity offered by Shimon Peres and the many who came before him and us. I am glad to live in a world where our souls do not relax, a world of spiritual necessity and infinite possibility. So this then is my intention: I will stand on the doorstep to welcome this new year holding all of our differences and contradictions in my heart, knowing their capacity for transformation.

 

Wishing you all weekends full of powerful contradictions and thoughtful preparation, my friends.

 

Warmly,

 

Dan

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