Wanna Save the World?

Think global? local? or...

If you are marching and holding up signs about major problems, think about why. The massive Jewish, pro-Israel demonstration in Washington, DC in November 2023 was an important response to antisemitic demonstrations occurring around the world. But many groups demonstrate just to attract attention. Are you helping to improve the world when you join in big causes?

(Photo by Rosemary Ketchum: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-rallying-on-street-1464223/)

I taught English to adult immigrants to the USA for ten years, and my students’ experiences taught me a lot about cultures, revolutions, and change. The popular maxim, “Think globally, act locally” sounds good but, in my estimation, is at best foolish and can be downright dangerous. We can rarely know what is best globally. We see the world through our own eyes, the eyes of leaders we choose to follow, and the eyes of our news sources. Depending on these can be tricky. Journalists today usually promote an agenda rather than provide unbiased coverage, and movement and government leaders are often more focused on personal power and financial gain than on the message they are espousing.

Followers sincerely attach themselves to a message. Few realize they are learning and leaning toward only one side. My student from Benin, Africa had spent several years in university in France, where he had been converted to the Palestinian cause. When he started propagandizing my students, I took him aside and asked him where he had gotten his information. The answer was his French friends and Wikipedia. I recommended some Jewish sources. A few weeks later he apologized to me and said that he had discovered that he had not understood the conflict. His further study showed him that the situation was complicated, and that Israel was not the underlying problem.

Some YouTubers have interviewed people demonstrating with signs saying, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Asked what river, few could answer correctly. Some did not even know what sea. Yet they think they are “thinking globally and acting locally.”

Not only cultures, but ways of thinking and basic values are incredibly different in different places. What makes sense to an American can seem crazy to those in a different culture. Trying to impose values—the quick fix demanded by demonstrations—is revolution, which in our day ends up harming more people than it helps. Back before modern technology, when it took 15 days to bring copies of the new US Declaration of Independence from Philadelphia to Boston, change couldn’t happen overnight. There were 15 years between the Declaration of Independence and ratification of the US Constitution, time for people to think, experiment, grow, and change. Did you ever try to change a habit overnight? Change, where it is truly necessary, needs to progress slowly if it is to be effective.

This leaves the question of what kind of actions can be helpful in improving the world. A friend and I were discussing this, and one thing jumped out at me.

My friend and I have made positive differences through small personal actions. They were things that would not have happened, at least not when they did, without those personal acts. And those acts were directly related to other individuals.

Not to the crowd.

Not to the cameras.

To individuals.

When my friend’s teacher’s union was planning a strike, a group wanted to have a teacher on each street corner holding a sign saying, “Free Palestine.” My friend presented reasons why this was a bad idea. When she spoke out, others who agreed felt safe in speaking out as well. Together they convinced the union to drop the Palestinian angle. They prevailed, and the union left Palestine out of their demonstrations.

I call that a win for Israel and for the forces of good in the world.

The small things we do can have big repercussions. Years before the internet I started the first mail-order Jewish book-and-gift business. My immediate market was the Idaho town where I had lived; my larger target was isolated Jews living in remote communities. In the four years I ran Judaica USA I served people in places as varied as Hobbs, New Mexico, Paris, Tennessee, and Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania. A successful bricks-and-mortar store in Chicago took my idea and in my fourth year came out with a large, four-color catalog. Jewish items became available across the world.

Throughout Israel now there are outposts of soldiers tasked with our protection. They are where they are needed, mostly not on army bases. They do not have cooks and mess halls. The army provides prepared meals like American MREs (“meals ready to eat”) that prevent starvation but are nothing to look forward to. Citizens are volunteering to feed them. A friend in her 70’s who lives on a very small social security check has been cooking for them for weeks. Someone with money and no time brings ingredients and she cooks, helping provide a troop of about 25 soldiers their hot, home-cooked meal each night. In return, the men and women protecting us are well-fed, stay healthy, and know their hard work is appreciated, all of which keep us safer.

Sometimes people ask for help. An acquaintance of my husband once confided that he knew he needed immediate medical attention for an old injury, but he didn’t like asking for it because he was injured while involved in criminal activity. I told him he didn’t need to give anyone the whole story; he could just say, “It was a terrible experience and I do not talk about it.” That same night he was admitted to the hospital with critical septicemia. He found that the doctors and nurses who treated him respected that response. He went on to work for years as a fundraiser for an important charitable project.

For almost three years most of my English students were from Saudi Arabia, among them a few princes. I was the first Jew they had met. Because I covered my hair and always wore modest clothes, they felt more comfortable with me than with the teachers who wore skimpy or skin-tight clothes. A few of them brought me personal problems which I tried to help them resolve. Along the way, they learned that Jews can be friendly, helpful, and kind.

When I had a sewing school in the USA I taught a number of children from low-income families for free. One of those girls, now sixteen, is educating classmates who think “free Palestine” sounds smart. She knows she can come to me if she is asked questions she can’t answer.

If you are scratching your head trying to think of important things you’ve done, let me explain something that isn’t always apparent.

Sometimes you have no idea what you are doing is important.

I remember two schoolteachers fondly. Ruth Stone, 6^th grade, figured out that I needed eyeglasses, changing my life. And William “Wild Bill” Molloy, 8^th grade geography, had a rule that no one could leave class for any reason. One day when I had a big problem he noticed, stopped his lecture, and just said my name. I looked up and he jerked his head toward the door. I still think of him with gratitude.

The point is, we need to do good things for other people because we can, and because they need our help. We are not responsible for the ripple effect of those deeds; we are only responsible for dropping the first stone into the water.

But there’s an important caveat: we need to use judgment in our good deeds. The maxim, “One who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate,[1]” must be kept in mind. Helping the wicked just gives them more opportunity to flaunt their wickedness. 

Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza and mastermind of the October 7 massacre, was once incarcerated in Israel. During that time it was discovered he had a brain tumor, and Israeli doctors operated and saved his life. Was it smart and compassionate to spend taxpayer dollars to save the life of an enemy of those taxpayers, a terrorist convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison? Then he was released from prison in an uneven prisoners-for-hostage deal even more upside down than the 10-for-1 deal recently carried out during the ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel war. The decisions to operate and then release Sinwar are classic examples of evil coming from misplaced good intentions. Helping the worst among us, no matter how badly we think they need help, only improves the world if those people are ready and willing to accept our help, to learn, and to change.

Wanting to improve the world is a natural feeling for thinking, compassionate people. But how we do it matters. Most large-scale demonstrations do little except signal your virtue to your friends and peers. Providing information, caring and help to the people we meet in our every-day lives seems to me to be the best way as long as we choose to help those who have demonstrated that they will use the help wisely. Our dedication to a cause cannot be greater than that of the person we are helping. If not, we are feeding that ancient maxim that “One who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.”

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[1] Tanhuma, Parashat Mezora,1; Yalkut Shimoni, [commentaries], I Samuel, Chapter 121.