Us Them You Me Same

Noah Yuval Harari is a Professor of History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has written three recent books that have become worldwide phenomena - Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. All brilliant, thought provoking works. Harari points out more than once that one the key elements that makes humans distinctly different and able to dominate the earth is our ability to cooperate in large numbers. No other mammal can cooperate at the same scale. For example, our closest relative, the chimpanzee has many similar complex social interactions and abilities to cooperate. However, chimpanzees can only live in bands of up to 150. If the band grows beyond that number, chaos ensures – often with some screaming, fighting and feces-slinging – until the band divides into two smaller bands. 

Humans, however, can attend concerts of 20,000 people, organize nation states of hundreds of millions – if not billions (China) of people and operate financial systems that encompass the entire world. And how exactly do we do this? Harari says it's because we are a storytelling animal. We create fictions that allow us to work together. Corporations and nation-states, for example, are fictions that we universally treat as hard realities. Nothing actually separates Canada from the United States from Mexico other than political lines that humans have invented. Our cultures are shared stories that help us to work together within our nation states and distinguish ourselves from others. Similarly, a corporation like Microsoft is in reality a collection of servers, buildings and code. But we treat it almost as if it was a person – it has legal rights, decision making power and holds vast wealth and property. But if a judge ordered it shuttered tomorrow, its people and assets would scatter to the wind and it would cease to exist in the blink of an eye. It is our shared belief in the idea of Microsoft that makes it real.

The interesting thing about Homo sapiens is that with all our capacity to cooperate, we haven't really shaken our primate roots. There's a part of us still much like chimpanzees that wants to split into smaller bands and create the distinction between "Them" and "Us". We do it in millions of ways. Start by turning to the Civil Rights Act for the most common: race, color, national origin, religion, sex (or gender), age, disability, ancestry, marital status and sexual orientation. But we have numerous other, more innocuous ones: the sports teams we support, our hobbies, political party affiliation, music we listen to, favorite flavor of ice cream, hometown, favorite color, astrological sign, airline mileage status tiers and the list goes on….

And of course we define ourselves more broadly or narrowly by context. When I identify as an American – I'm joining a club of 280 million. When I lean toward my Jewish identity, I'm now part of only 3% of the world's population. As a member of my family I'm in a club of maybe 100-200 people but in my nuclear family, it's just four. As a male, I'm linked to 49% of the world's population (albeit with proportionately more power). As a Libra, I'm probably in the company of about 1/12th the world's population. And depending on the circumstance, I can flit around between these identities and groups as either I see fit. Or I am what the world defines me to be at any given moment.

When I asked my brother-in-law, Hugo what he saw as most different about Israel, he felt it was the way people define themselves by religion and how big a role religion – or more so, their religious identities – play in their lives. It's true that Israel has not only Jews, but Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bahai and more residing here. Although all of these may hold Israeli citizenship, the general idea of being Israeli is predominantly a Jewish thing, since it is a Jewish state in which some minorities reside. I can't imagine an Arab Israeli feels the same sense of "Israeli-ness" as a Jew. And the intricacies of the rules of how Jerusalem operates and with rules about when Jews can go up to the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock and when they can't – and what they can do there – or which part of the Western Wall is allocated to which Jewish denomination – are yet another level of "us/them" woven into the fabric of Israeli life. After all, a rash of stabbings took place in Jerusalem after just rumors got out that the Israeli government might restrict access to the Al Aqsa Mosque. "Us/Them" is life and death business here.

About an hour after Hugo's comment, we were rafting down the Jordan River, passing numerous places where Arab Israelis were recreating on the river banks – enjoy their day off (Israel's weekend is Friday and Saturday). Our very fun river rafting journey ended at a park the rafting company built with additional activities you could pay for – including zip lining and rock wall climbing. Foreigners, Jewish Israelis and a large contingent of Arab Israelis were there enjoying – often with the Arab Israelis bringing barbecues (the actual grills) for afternoon picnics. Everyone seemed to be recreating and commingling in peace. At first, it was surprising to see such a concentration of Arab Israelis – as we hadn't encountered that before in our journey. And then after a few minutes, it began to feel like Singapore or Southern Thailand where women in headscarves and men with muslim skullcaps or even fez are commonplace in very mixed societies. I began not to notice the difference – and then I wondered if other people did too? Is a mixed-ethnic setting like that as comfortable as a Singaporean mall, or is there a tenuousness or awkwardness to which I'm not an informed party?

At about 5pm, we looked out from Mount Scopus over Jerusalem – old and modern. We said the Shehekiyanu, thanking God for this special moment in coming to Jerusalem together, as a family – and for many, the first time. How blessed are we to be able to see it, to be present and to do it all together, in good health?

At 7pm, after a brief stop at our very elegant hotel to get settled in and changed, we found ourselves walking in a sea of Jews toward the Old City, through the Arab Quarter, to the Western Wall – where Jews of all denominations, sects – and from all over the world – came to bring in Shabbat. We literally merged into a warm sea of "Us".

As we cleared Security and descended to the Kotel, we could all be together in an observation area. But to go any closer to the wall and join Kabbalat Shabbat services, we ha to separate into men and women – Us and Them. And there we were in a sea of "Us" – Jews praying and rejoicing at one of Judaism's holiest sites – separately. As my father-in-law said looking around, "that guy looks like he could be my cousin!" And at the same time, even within the men at the wall, groups of various religious denominations and sects divided into their respective services, each with their own cadence and approach. A group of young Modern Orthodox men were singing their Kabbalat Shabbat loudly – dancing and rejoicing. It was easy to gravitate toward them with their familiar melodies and their infectious Ruach (spirit). In another corner men resembling 18th Century Polish nobility with black fur-lined hats and kaftans moved their bodies rhythmically, in unison while chanting away the very same prayers as the young rejoicers – but in a somber manner at high-speed. Even among "Us" – there were numerous pockets of "Them" going on.

The very idea of modern Israel being a Jewish state is for there to be a place for "Us". But we are not the only ones here – there are others. And even among "Us" – we are too often "Them" to one another. 

Rabbi Shimon Paskow, my childhood rabbi, often says that Jews are a Macher (maker or leader)-ocracy. Everyone wants to be in charge. Everyone knows what's best. And that's what makes leading a synagogue such a challenge. I think few Rabbis would disagree with him. Once we feel at home, our "Us" breaks into an "Us/Them" game of cliques, factions and politics all-too-easily. Don't believe me, look at Israeli politics and the upcoming snap elections…

Israel is a place of both great unity and multitudes of completely and intricate divides.

The older I get, the more I see "Us/Them" as the futile game that prevents us from being our best selves and reaching our best possible cooperation. We can use our storytelling prowess to unite or divide and it feels obvious to me which yields greater results.

But my niece Bailey – the Bat Mitzvah girl of this trip – understood this at just three years-old.

"Aunt Emmy, you like pink? I like pink too! You, me same!"

Bailey went through an entire of phase of this – finding a "you, me same" topic in order to bond. You can chalk it up to a developmental stage or her particularly sweet personality – or perhaps an underlying need to create social stability like our chimpanzee cousins within their troops. However you label it, Bailey understood an underlying truth – "You, Me Same" is far more powerful and true than "Us/Them". Flooding the Old City and Western Wall with thousands from around the world to warmly usher in Shabbat together feels a lot better than screaming and throwing feces at one another.