To Inspire OUR Instant National, Political, Social, and Cultural Maturation – Recall: Yosef, Moshe, and Esther → each in their historic moment ⇒ saved ALL Israel. So what did these National Saviors have in common? [1] They each had very traumatic childhoods: Yosef was hated by his jealous brothers and thus sold into slavery, Moshe literally was the baby thrown out with the bath water, and young Esther was already an orphan of both parents (Esther 2:7). [2] Each had non-Jewish names: Yosef was called Zaphnath-Paaneah (Bereshis 41:45), Moshe was the Egyptian name given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter (some of his Hebrew names were Jekuthiel – by his mother, and Heber – by his father), and Esther’s name was Hadassah (“Esther” is a cognate of Persian GxD-name Ishtar). [3] They each dressed in non-Jewish clothes: Yosef was shaved & clothed appropriately to go before Pharaoh (Bereshis 41:14), Moshe was identified as an Egyptian by his clothing when he came to Midian, and Esther was dressed in Persian royal-robes to come before Ahasuerus (Xerxes). Of course, [4] each also spoke the ‘national’ language of their respective exile. So what is there to learn & understand from The Commonality of these three Saviors of Israel?

OBSERVE: Jews, today & always, experience assorted childhood ‘traumas’, come by many names, dress in many styles, and communicate using many languages. We do not know -and- Can Not Know who among us will be tasked with a life saving mission (opportunity) for saving individuals, families, communities, and even for saving All Israel. How individual Jews survive/survived – when circumstances from childhood cast us amongst alien customs, habits, and patterns of thinking – is not for us to judge; for we have no idea who anyone is on the inside, nor how anyone will act when circumstances give them/us an opportunity to help others. Our history tells us that our greatest saviors were individuals whom we would never have identified as capable of rising to the great challenges before them; nor of accomplishing the heroic deeds for which we remember them!

TODAY, Nation Israel is divided into many physical camps: some living within the State of Israel, others residing abroad, and many migrating back & forth. All of us recognise, deeply within our own hearts, that Unity is our greatest strength. Unity, by which we help each other. Unity, by which we share a common identity. Unity, by which we were part of the “All Israel” that was saved by Yosef, by Moshe, and by Esther.

In order to continue, recognise ⇒ We are ALL in The Same Generation: regardless of our variations of backgrounds, names, costumes, & languages; independent of financial status, nepotism benefits, & outward ‘spiritual’ auras; and – notwithstanding our protexia access, trauma​​ tolerance, & ideological alignments. In recognition of deeper common factors – that we share with Yosef, Moshe, & Esther – the following paragraphs are addressed; specifically to awaken OUR inherent sparks of Altruism:

NOW – Looking at (some) Social Turbulence within The State of Israel, and ‘oblique’ opinions being expressed from afar – by both Jews & non-Jews, hereinafter are comments on simultaneous social modifications that seem to constitute a more-properly balanced – rational – next-step program for Amicable social progress, and an appropriate-for-us Unity of Diversity Paradigm; specifically, an ‘adiabatic’ package of stabilizing changes – more comprehensive than various (debated & protested) instant “Reforms”. These include peculiar Judicial, Legislative, Executive, and Educational directions; Educational Reform being my optimistic vision for Patiently & Progressively building a Less Stressful national & social Cohesion Consensus. 

Since we consistently ‘produce!’ innumerable ‘National Treasure’ individuals, (obviously) Our National & Religious Highest Courts’ decisions should reflect the most mature ‘common sense’ considerations of OUR Ethically Best & Intellectually Brightest (a criteria We ALL should openly advocate; Otherwise, we want our social problems). Therefore, The Standards for ALL Shoftim & Dayanim SHOULD increase UNTIL candidates are well versed in Israeli law, Halacha, other legal systems, Natural Science Technologies, and Information Science; albeit Essentially Independent(!) Individuals of vastly assorted philosophical & psychological orientations. ⇒ Our very highest courts can only serve All-Israel’s best interest – in the present moment and for the long term of our continued survival as a Nation – if senior Shoftim & Dayanim are each highly qualified in ALL of these areas. [?] How quickly we transition to have and to benefit from such a world-wise judiciary is unclear; However the ultimate necessity of which is Absolute. 

⇒ Apparently(?) other Reforms are necessary to pave the way for us to eventually have such a best possible judiciary – since sufficient numbers of senior Shoftim & Dayanim having these qualifications do NOT currently exist; thus, a semi-standardised National Education Curriculum (described below) may be the best way to facilitate “producing!” such broadly transdisciplinary Giants. [See Postscript for Historic National ‘Judicial’ precedents & failures]

Briefly, turning to Legislative & Executive Reforms, one of the emerging problems in our current expanding electorate-population democracy model is that voters are no longer personally familiar with candidates; and this leads to a system of voting for party platforms – which in turn are reflexively oriented according to popular opinion polls. We, the voters, are left completely uncertain about the ‘ethical’ character of most individuals on any party’s list; and evidently we can not rely on their biased characterizations, as portrayed in the advertisement sponsored press. 

Nevertheless, given our ideological predilection for maintaining legacy systems (forever!), it is likely that Members of (our fixed size) Knesset will continue to be elected via party lists; albeit To Become ONLY responsible for “affirming” limited internal aspects of national bureaucratic agency activities; since respective ‘monetary considerations’ seem to have become the Basic Motivating Focus of ‘virtually’ all parties in the current system of “administration” & actualization. 

Therewith, aspiring for appropriate counterbalancing aspects, and given our apparent residual infatuation with the American Democracy format, we need a (population size proportional) Representative Legislature to Debate, Compromise, and Affirm the Laws by which we attempt to thrive; Representatives by direct elections for individuals → Personally Known for their wisdom, helpfulness, honesty, sincerity, maturity, and character ⇒ by their respective (Social networking type → Algorithm cluster-associated → bias-free Defined) Local Community ‘neighbors’.

⇒ Then, a Prime Minister (can be any! citizen) elected/removed with a ‘Simple’ majority vote of the Knesset -together with- a ‘Significant’ majority vote of the Representative Legislature; since we can not sustain the magnificence of our ongoing accelerated national maturation by having our primary political leader at odds with the collective will of these two legislatures.

[Regarding Draft, Conscription, National Service → begin at paragraph starting “For example: Altruistic Haredim…” ⇒ https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-budget-happy-jewish-national-peace-plan/] 

Now, returning to Our Always Emerging Struggle: Perhaps most important, in order to eventually enable a better quality of Balanced National Dialogue, is for our rapid transitioning into a different semi-standardised Pluralistic National Education Curriculum. According to my best understanding, each grade level would have six Age-Appropriate core syllabus aspects:

(1) National Identity ⇒ Ignorance of our complex history’s many dimensions is unconscionable, and inconsistent with our highest aim; to produce an ever better informed electorate, including a universally praise-worthy class of community leaders, national leaders, Shoftim & Dayanim. Even if Torat Moshe is ONLY portrayed as the original written anthology of our primordial memories, it comprises The BASIS of Our Collective Indigenous Identity! Children from Age 5 (and their parents too!) should regularly read & discuss Torat Moshe ⇒ AND in parallel, they should learn (and discuss): Pre-state HISTORY: comprising Biblical accounts & trans-global post-biblical experiences; and State history including pre-state, early-state, transitional, and ongoing ideas, decisions, and events → bringing together the respected Diverse-Opinion Voices expressed by: A. Geiger; M. Margolis & A. Marx; R. Hilberg; B. Hecht; and others!), or at least many significant sections thereof, as part of our “national acclimation” curriculum’s readings. Awareness of these common core aspects → with Respective Parental Orientation ideations & feelings ⇒ are uniquely appreciated as Instantly Equal to collective classical & modern commentaries ⇒ since we living persons are bearing responsibility for the success of OUR instant future. 

(2) Technical Fundamentals (Applied Mathematics), compliant with BOTH religious and secular world views, are taught for appreciating & understanding today’s cutting edge Research & Development; in Natural Science based Technologies -and- in Information Science. → Concurrently, children of secular families should be Better exposed to Halacha LOGIC (having neither religion, nor theology, nor ideology content/bias), including characterizations analyzing status considerations for abstract & practical boundary proximate valuation  resolution -and- ‘normal’ statistical presumption simplifications; while children of ultra-religious families should be Better exposed to QUANTITATIVE Reasoning technology (having neither “scientific Belief”, nor theory, nor sci-fi speculation content/bias), including the basic operational concepts & tools for SIMPLIFIED algorithm & formula representations of arithmetic, algebra & geometry, vectors & tensors, calculus & measure theory, statistics (boltsman, bayesian, and quantum), network topology, and P & NP complexity ⇒ most of which can be presented as side note-lessons to a proper Age 10-15 Sequential Study of The Mishnah: an extremely Pedologically Ordered catalog of Structures of Thought! [details to be presented in a subsequent Blog]

(3) Individual school’s parent-teacher determined Practical Subject core aspects. Options here not only reflect the real diversity of our national population but also include the variety of parental aspirations, especially as reflected in their choice of schools for their children; and may include materials for preparation of most any future adult life-support, such as Foreign Language(s) -and- study for career in kollel/talmud, pre-military, academic tracts, financial & business awareness, agricultural & environmental studies, science & engineering, helping professions, legal & administrative studies, medical & health related, vocational training, creative & performing arts, manufacture & service work, etc.

(4) Local-community Creative Cultural core aspects. A diverse list of elective activity interest-group choices; including such subjects as graphic arts, music, film, dance, drama, sofrut, chazanoot, makamim, biblical architecture, modern architecture, design, culinary arts, fashion, etc.

(5) School administration structured core aspects for (age appropriate!) teaching “Family Appropriate” mental health, physical wellbeing, hygiene, nutrition, group dynamics & communications, gender relation awareness, public health, local environmental awareness (including identifying edible flora), social responsibility, pedestrian safety, and an adequate introduction to laws & legal obligations of adult members in our society.

(6) Regarding aspects that YOU may personally find under-emphasized or missing, there is clearly enough time for further individualized religious, philosophical, psychological, and sociological group activities during before-school, after-school, vacation, and home life hours; as is currently reflected by the local abundance of extra-curricular programs.

In order to accomplish such a shift in education, very large numbers of subject-experience Appropriate retirement-age individuals should be incorporated into every classroom setting (just like >50 aged Kohanim once were); albeit without reducing the current interactive classroom/online format of certified teaching professionals, and without disturbing the current local school administration management. Nevertheless, we can only expect retirement-age individuals to each contribute their time in proportion to their health, and in accordance with their individual motivation to help further educational quality. Their participation will give children a much needed respectful sense of love for Israel’s elderly; in light of their shared interactions. Thus, incorporating appropriate retirement-age individuals into classrooms will be a social everyone-wins improvement.

In these ways, I believe [A] that we can B”H smoothly transition to being a More Mature version of A Healthy Viable Unity-of-Diversity Jewish Nation, [B] that the echoes of our amicable efforts will rapidly propagate to our brethren among the nations, and [C] that we may never again be in need of another national Savior of Israel ⇒ happily leaving the Moshiach with little to fix, less to do, and much (much) more of our efforts to appreciate.

Postscript: Recall, “once upon a time”, our highest Judicial body was The Sanhedrin; a forum of our ethical best & intellectually brightest; highly transdisciplinary scholars; each having mastered their own lives, the tranquility of their domestic relations, and unusually vast amounts of knowledge. Surprisingly, Most of Their Decisions, across the background of radically changing circumstances, were essentially ⇒ When To Maintain The Status Quo -AND- When To Change! Timely decisions by their majority always constituted the “Best Life Practices Advice” available! Now, we would certainly benefit from analysis & voting by such a Superior Judicial Body (IF we could educate OUR children to become eligible). 

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