The past few weeks I can only describe as the feeling of whiplash, bouncing back and forth between joy and sadness, anger and celebration, humor and seriousness, hope for the future and fear for the battles ahead. It is utterly exhausting and I think that I would come unmoored if not for communities like we have in VoP.

This is perhaps best exemplified by my experience yesterday as a guest on Shai Davidai’s podcast –

Shai asked me when was the last time I cried. I said it was when the last living hostages were released – tears of joy seeing families reunited, tears of catharsis at seeing the sign at hostage square change from “bring them home” to “welcome back home”, tears of sadness at the hostage bodies not being returned and that those families will not have a happy ending no matter what, tears of disgust because pursuing a war – no matter how justified and necessary – is always a terrible thing. It was a feeling of whiplash.

I was on the podcast to talk about my work in Jewish satire and yet most of the conversation was a serious analysis of the challenges of being a moderate – not in order to please everyone – but to try and hold one conversation with everybody involved. Hoping to pull people back from the extremes. As I prepare to attend this year’s World Zionist Congress I am seeing this in action. It remains to be seen whether a consensus coalition will be achieved and it will take huge efforts by both sides trying understand one another to get there. Again whiplash.

Shai asked me why a council like VoP, that needs to work on serious issues, would have a humorist involved. What other country would do that? What value does it bring? I said that it is why we as a people are unique. We have this superpower of Jewish humor that can cut through the noise and open people up to hearing another point of view. At the same time, as we heard in Tuesday’s Masterclass, it is not always the right tool for the job. Shai asked me how do you know when is the right time for it? I said “with great effort”. Whiplash.

Reflecting on all of this made me even more appreciative of VoP as a forum for all of this to take place and the bravery of President Herzog for setting it up. If we can embrace this feeling of whiplash, and let ourselves bounce back and forth between conflicting emotions and conflicting perspectives, maybe we can get to a better place together – as a people.

Shabbat shalom

Ryan