Things I Wish You Knew
By: Alon Michael
Tags: Power, Choices, Photography

A painting of an old Rabbi (Rembrandt)

Often times I wonder what was it like to have a philosophical conversation with my late grandfather. A conversation I wish I had with him before he passed away but, perhaps back then, neither of us was ready for it.

Life, I like to believe, is an open slate. Open for us to pour whatever it is that we want, whatever it is that we dream of it to be. But what if it isn’t so? What if life is something that is being dictated to you? What if late at night, while you are asleep, there are little voices whispering in your ears. Distilling into you ideas, or worst still, ideals?

What if every page you turn, has been written for you, and what if whenever you push, you are, quite simultaneously, being pulled?

There are such ideas, maps of meaning, that are built around us like fortresses on the soul. Word by word, like bricks, they are being laid when we are little. Sooner or later, however, if we are not courageous enough, these bricks will seal us off.

One day, you will suddenly realize, your mind is held up in a high tower. No windows nor doors, nor ladders nor ropes. You are locked. Beware, I must tell you, of the words with which you have been mold. Words are like small drops that make an ocean, words run deep. Put together, they will form many ideas. Ideas then, that will forever paint your soul.

My grandfather was, I always think, painted by certain ancient ideas. When I look back at the man he was, I can see them running to-and-fro in his head. Ideas, you see, are like reins. Indeed, they could stir you well but what about the animal within? What about what it wants?

I remember ideas such as duty, ideas of prevailing, ideas of the journey he took. But stronger than any, was his idea of The Book. I remember his eyes, and that look. He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant, and then was immediately drawn back in.

Reflecting, now I think this smile had been asking for help. Like a soldier, drafted to a battle not truly his, I think my grandfather was at the frontlines, holding the field of generations’ made wish.

Israel is like that when you think about it. So many prayers, so many tears. What happens though, after two thousand years? What can one do with a promise, with a collective dream, that is finally fulfilled?

And so, I think back on him and of the weight he had to carry on his soul. The weight of a whole tribe of people that had only one goal. But soon he learned, or at least that how I feel, that ‘the times, they are a-changin’. The old world he was brought up in was dead. With its customs and patriarchal rules, with the respect one must have had for the Word and for long preserved ideals.

Stories of the past

In his last book, ‘Morality’, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained how important are the stories we tell ourselves. Specifically, Rabbi Sacks explained how the Jewish Bible (please don’t call it The Old Testament, there are people still using this version) depicts specific stories, stories to live by. The structure of a family, monogamy, power, unity, belonging, duty, Israel and yes, also of God. All these ideals, woven into stories, are being told to us in it.

But the Bible is not the only storytelling, life constructing source there is. We are being told of stories every day, reminded of them every hour. You have the story of your own family, then your own community, the story of your political party, and that of the other one. Stories of your country and its values. We live according to stories about our enemies and allies, about our land (and why it is ours), stories about our nutrition and… well you get the idea.

I know my grandfather carried a certain story in his mind. That story, eventually, transformed him to the person he was. He wore it, brushed his teeth with it, he dreamt it and sang it and prayed that story every day, three times a day and some change.

Lucky enough, my parents made some personal choices that, perhaps, changed my life completely. I was given the same story from day one, of course, but unlike my grandfather, that story was not a seal upon my soul. It was laying there for me to play with, but nothing more. It was never my story. That distance allowed for observation, it allowed me to feel, think and reflect freely.

This story, the story of the people of Israel, was told to my grandfather since he was born. So vigorous was how it has been told, so defining. Suddenly, that story took a vivid shape when my grandfather became active part in it. He was handed a pen for him to write the Zenith of it all. He made it through the mountains of Northern Iraq all the way to Israel’s shores. Two thousand years of waiting, my grandfather could now go back home. My grandfather, being so emotionally invested in his story, could never ask himself if there was something more.

You see, each one of us is a part of a story. Be it Jewish or Christian, Buddhist or else. Be it Swedish or Nigerian, English, or American.

I agree with Rabbi Sacks on the importance of these stories to the sense of the collective. But what about you? Yes, you are part of something bigger than yourself, indeed. But can these stories tell us who we are, who I am?

I think not.

The problem with collective stories is that they tell us how we got here, but not where we are going. The stories are the tails of the road behind us, not the path ahead. Yes, I know, ‘he who has no past has no future as well’, but I do not ask you to discard your past, but rather, to live beyond it. The stories we have been told are the foundations to our own. Pop culture, Disney’ movies especially, love to show us how the hero must reconnect with her past, reconnect to the energies of her ancestors, so she could find her own way.

But this is not how it works.

For the majority of us, the past of our ‘people’, of our nation, defines us. We have no room, nothing to play with. ‘It has been told’, and that is it. We become, almost with no exemption, what our stories tells us we ought to be. It has been defined for us. These stories, I repeat, are built around us like fortresses on the soul.

Imagine what would have happen if Leonardo da Vinci would have been born within wedlock. Or if Marie Curie was not so rebellious, or if Steve Jobs was never abandoned by his parents. What would have happened if Nietzsche felt he was obliged to the Christian clergy like his father, or if Goethe were to become a lawyer like his’?

The rebellion is not to be praised for the act of defiance, but for the liberty it seeks. For one must break free!

I had to travel far and wide to acknowledge this fact. To detach myself not only from my own story, but from any story. Far enough, I can now see how these stories were trying to construct and define me. Further still, I could, for the first time, chose who I want to be.

Stories are there to tell us what has been, for us to learn from the past, to understand the importance of it so we could be better today and, in the future. Our future. But stories were never meant to define for us how to live. The past that these stories represent has only one purpose for us; learn from other’s mistakes while absorbing their greatness. The past is like a compass, it can help if you are lost. But no matter where you want to go, it will only show one thing — North.

I tell you, respect the past. Learn what you need from it. Collect beautiful stories, little mantras, and aphorisms. But that is it. Where the past has ended, you begin.

Sit down and write your own story. Learn what is it that you want, but more important — what is it that you need. Make life your own and set yourself free. Don’t live up for the expectations, don’t live for the sake of preservation. Be what you yourself ought to be.

I wish I could tell this to my grandfather. Telling him that the story he thought he was part of was never truly his. That even though he was part of something great, part of a collective, he was never part of himself. The world changed around him, but he remained still. A beautiful man with a book in his hand and a promise that was never fulfilled.

What would he have answered if I’d asked him how it feels? Having ideas of what he once wanted but not of what he now needs.

And so, I often think of that conversation we never had. I tell myself his story, reminded of the past, but living the future ahead.