Simply put, Capitalism is the elephant of which I speak. Our Jewish community is shouting from the top of the tallest mountain… Money = happiness.
The biggest threats to our community are the values of competition, selfishness, individualism, materialism and consumerism. Meaning with a barcode, which makes us feel good about ourselves. The direction that our community has taken is in direct contradiction with basic Jewish values. Escapism can never be the answer to the lack of fulfillment in our lives.
Money as the center of our community’s ambitions is a really big elephant in the room that we don’t talk about and when the time is right and no one else is around most people will give the elephant a most intimate and affectionate hug.
The Jewish obsession with financial prosperity has limited the potential of our “other” Jewish wealth - our souls - spiritual aspirations, our inner abilities to dream. Our hope and potential to create a world that is built on the humanistic values of Am Yisrael is slowly disappearing. Obsession with Money has limited us to a confined room, and rather than looking for a key, we are decorating.
Money = opportunity = position= power = Money
Money = happiness
This cycle rules our lives. Where has all the fulfillment gone? Why have we supplemented it with sporadic shots of pleasure? Has fulfillment become something limited to certain times of the year or certain stages in our lives? Has fulfillment become a ten day vacation or working for the weekend? Why is it that the list of rights of passage in one’s life now includes a mid life crisis?
What I’m asking is: Would life not have more meaning if we were to have jobs that defined us—our entire spiritual, educational holistic being. A job that gives us meaning -one where we would wake up in the mornings excited for the prospect of it being a new day with new challenges, new ways to affect change in our lives and society. A reality we engage with and not want to run away from. What we do today defines who we will be tomorrow. These ideas are becoming a foreign pipe dream to us and the thought of how this will limit future generations is despairing.
Capitalism leads to immorality because it takes away the fact that human beings are social beings. It makes life a competition where the person with the most power is the winner. Capitalism does not teach us to love thy neighbour it teaches us to beat him. Like the control of consumerism we will never have enough power, one of the roots of capitalism is the continual perpetuation of the system by us because we all believe that one day we will see our names at the top spot of the BRW Rich list.
This culture of competition, of winning “the life game” which has nothing to do with the ability of the human spirit, is leading us down a path of destruction, an individualistic and lonely lifestyle that leaves our souls empty.
Slowly our Jewish identity is being hijacked by consumerist culture. An identity based on objectification does not enhance our freedom but leads us to avoiding what is “real” in life. The consumerist environment is no longer just related to going to Westfield when I feel down. It’s seeing our parents solely as providers, seeing our friends as objects, actively consuming our relationships. In the 21st century it will be us, generation Y, who are known for giving our loved ones this advice. Feeling socially vulnerable? Go shopping, it makes you feel better! Low self esteem? Tease somebody. Having a hard time dealing with the questions of your life? Weed clears everything up! Our answers of poker and drugs are not genuine answers yet these are the answers of today.
Relationships are only one example, a microcosm of how we engage with our Judaism today. Rather than seeing it as an all-encompassing way of life that enhances human beings and fulfills us, we are all still looking for our quick fix. Aspirations in a vial. Retail therapy, sweeping stuff under the rug, escapism, drugs. These defense mechanisms might make us feel good for a moment in time but after that moment has passed we are still left with a life that leads to isolation and alienation from our loved ones and ourselves. We need a society of freethinking individuals who struggle with the harder complexities of what it means to live as a human being. We need a community of Jews who are more in touch with themselves, their identity, who they are, who they want to be and how to see their choices in the context of determining the destiny of the whole Jewish People.
Capitalism has become so institutionalized that education is now seen as a chore and not a virtue. Today learning is not about enriching life, it is about getting a piece of paper to get a better job with a better salary to enRICH one’s life. Although everything is telling us otherwise escapism is not an answer, it’s a quick fix that brings a smile to your face until you are faced with reality once again. A fix, which we are building a tolerance for.
To be a nation means to have solidarity between people, where has it gone?
Charity has become giving our 10 dollars to someone in need. It has become less about them and more about us. We are trying to give ourselves the legitimacy not to feel guilty for not living up to our Jewish responsibilities or, at least, for asking why are there poor people in the first place? Our responsibility to the rest of our nation and the world at large is endangered by the way we make decisions not by delving into their complexities of how choices will affect our lives but by choosing efficiency and enjoyment because we “need“ answers NOW!. We are fighting a game of relative poverty where the 20 year old who doesn’t go to uni or have a car is poor and is less of a person than other members of our community by virtue of material possession, which leads to material position. The kid with the coolest game in school--the “trendsetter”--quickly becomes the cool kid. Not because of how they treat people, not because of the values they exude, not their life aspirations but their new Nintendo makes them the measuring stick to how we are living our lives.
Without solidarity within the Jewish people there is no Jewish people. No centre with value. If we carry on with the rat race people will be left to the way side and are being left to the wayside. As long as a person goes hungry to bed at night our Jewish mission is not being fulfilled. We are failing one of our biggest tests of life. Our responsibility is towards life itself and not just looking at our lives alone but the beating heart of the Jewish people. Equality is further away now than it ever has been. We don’t need to focus on the person who dies of hunger, lets focus on why parents will give their child a present, a material object as a sign of affection? The bigger the pooh bear the more my daddy loves me. Since when was a hug not enough? Why when we have conflict, which is natural, rather than working through issues and growing as people together we run to our ipods, go for a fast walk, hit punching bags or buy a Ferrari? To let off steam is a need but to see that as the solution to our problems of life is to choose to objectify our own lives.
I ask of you what is in the center of our Jewish community?
Is it God and the laws of Moses? Is it Zionism and Israel? Is it a Jewish culture and the nostalgic feeling of being a part of something bigger? Is that enough?
Or is it materialism? The rat race? Consumerism? Capitalism? A mixture of all of these?
We are in a downward spiral towards the abyss where we will lose the real meaning of living a Jewish life. This is not the view of a self hating Jew. This is the view of a worried member of our community saying our Jewish moral compass is leading us towards the best seat in synagogue or the newest Ipod on the market. We are much more worried about our image than the content of who we really are.
If I am beautiful, meaning I have a flat stomach, good social abilities and make enough money to ensure that there is somebody below me on the monetary ladder then I am “happy”, or at least happier than my neighbour. A society that defines its members by how many zeros at the end of their bank account statement is a society that has lost its way.
As individualism reigns supreme, communication deteriorates. When you have social class, hierarchy, and the perfect image to keep up with, who has time for real communication? I am looking for a society where people give of themselves to other human beings--sharing of themselves insights into their inner thoughts and feelings? We are educated towards being carbon copies of societal expectations. In a society that doesn’t allow us to be unique why would we want to be? Being different is a disease. And yet the truth remains, all human beings are complex! We all feel a bit depressed sometimes, we all feel inadequate, we all feel love, we all have fun. We all should be struggling with the deeper questions of life but I don’t think we are going to find the answer in Westfield Bondi Junction where when I walk in I feel like an idolater praying to a shrine of consumerism.
So what now?
Rather than sitting around next Friday night debating how much your best friends brothers 2nd wife got for her house in the east of Sydney, lets talk about why we are Jewish. What connects us to our neighbors? What does it mean to be a part of a nation that unifies human beings together? What place does community have in our skewed moral compass? What demand does that make of us when it comes to thinking of our fellow man?
If only humans could hug humans with the same intimacy as we hug the elephant in the room.
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