Letter to a Young Arab Intellectual

I received a heartfelt letter from a young Arab intellectual who recently left Islam, grappling with the heavy burden of his previous biases towards Israelis.

In intimate colloquial language he shared his journey of questioning these beliefs after exposure to different perspectives online, only to face harsh backlash from a close friend.

Despite the fear and shame, he expressed a deep desire to live with a light heart, recognizing the humanity and suffering on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here’s my response to his courageous reflection.

Yeah, you're exactly right.

The trouble is that in a fucked up social system if you have both a brain and a heart you're often going to have to sacrifice at least one of them for the sake of the other.

Okay, that's a difficult sentence-paragraph.

Let me explain.

THIS is what human society is TOLD to be like in the Torah:

Instead, it's a dog eat dog world based on lies where the predominant opinion is that win/win/win for us all is impossible.

So you're surrounded by an unhealthy emotional cloud that demands reaction if you are to have any heart at all.

At the same time, you realize that the only permissible public reaction (and therefore the one safest for your inner sentiments too, if possible) is dumb and evil.

So to follow your brain you must deny your heart.

Or to satisfy your heart (with at least SOME proportional reaction, even if just to feel like a human) you must sacrifice your brain.

That's why, despite having neither the know-how nor the skills to get it done, I'm trying to awaken the world with a shared recongnition of the fact that we already understand each other, because we ARE each other.

And that we're not so bad, and neither is this gorgeous existence we get to enjoy.