The following lines are written when so many have begun to commemorate one year since the death of their loved ones. Many believe that by this point, their loved ones are already in a different, better place. And as the autumn birds begin to migrate south, the winds of war are blowing in the north. Cloud-swept sky, charred earth, forests burning and municipality workers keep wiping broken glass off the pavement. With no shelter, it seems we can expect another harsh winter. The people of the land know the climate well, they remain patient between the seasons and even plant for the spring, as they raise a new generation of farmers.
[1] Maoz Yinon is well-known in Israel. Indeed, the BBC correspondents sought to interview him even before the seven-day mourning was over. His mother Bilha, an artist and teacher, loved painting mandalas. His father Yacov dedicated his life to farmwork. On the night of their return to Netiv HaAsara – a rural community on the border with Gaza – the two spent some leisure time with their grandchildren in Tel Aviv. The next day, after they returned, a rocket hit their wooden house and it burned to the ground, with them inside.
In Maoz’s little acre, he kept building bridges over stormy waters. Long before the war, he guided tours and introduced social activism into the tourism industry. He brought the message of the new tourism to Nazareth, where he opened Fawzi Azar, the city’s first guesthouse. He went on to establish the highly successful nationwide guesthouse chain called Abraham Hostel.
It was a Sunday morning. Hundreds of rockets were fired in the north. About to take off to Paris, Maoz agreed to talk to us via Zoom. We didn’t want this to be an interview, but a conversation. Indeed, an interview has clear boundaries, whereas a candid conversation could take us anywhere.
Forced into the Israeli-Palestinian bereaved family, Maoz had to part from a mother and father on the same day. But he was not consumed by vengeance. Now, in the midst of the Jewish month of Elul, the Month of Forgiveness, he asks all his listeners to choose to forgive. In the tension between the individual and collective, between the private and national home, with no shelter, in a midst of a growing crisis in the reality of language, our dialogue with Maoz opened a window onto a new language.
The new year, being a family man in the shadow of loss, masculinity and forgiveness.
How are you doing?
M: Great, fabulous. I’m flying to Paris this evening. […] Lots of interviews. Writing, thinking, doing, preparing for October 7. Trying to function at home. Sort of. Is it working for me? {looking at his young daughter in the background}. […] I also jogged this morning […]. I live in the house that’s right on the edge […] so through the window I can see an olive grove. I’ve been living in Binyamina for 18 years […]. In Binyamina there was no single siren ever since the beginning of the war. I jog, not every morning. I aim for three times a week. When I don’t, I try to stretch at home, yoga, freestyle.
[…] We wanted to ask you about the conference you’re attending. [….]
M: In Paris there’s a conference organized by some peace activists. Truth is, I have no idea… Generally speaking, I have no idea. The fun is that I’m not in complete control. That’s the beauty. When I’m abroad, somebody always takes care of my schedule, where to go and what to do. I just go there and do my thing, everything I’ve got. They tell me when breakfast is and when the next meeting is. I know that tomorrow evening there’s a conference in a beautiful hall in Paris, a thousand people. There are other great speakers – Amira Ibrahim, Alon-Lee Green and Roula Daoud from Standing Together. My partner Aziz Abu-Sarah will also be there, and other Israelis and Palestinians as well. I have four minutes. Today, while jogging, I prepared my four minutes. I don’t even get to writing it down to remember it until tomorrow.
With your permission, we would like to go back to the start. Already in the first days of mourning, you brothers conveyed a very clear message. At the very start of a huge personal tragedy […] you set out on a voyage. You chose to continue your parents’ heritage by calling to end the war and bloodshed from the River to the Sea. Out of the huge loss, you brothers created a new language. Can you describe the process?
M: As far as I’m concerned, October 7 is irrelevant.
What do you mean?
M: I don’t live October 7, although everybody wants to. The mechanism here wants us to keep living the Seventh of the Tenth – I’m opposed to that. At first, I used to say nothing can prepare you for such a day. Losign both parents, childhood friends, their parents, their children, killed or kidnapped. Nothing can prepare you. And I realized I was wrong. My entire life prepared me, and not only me, our family prepared us for October 7. We came prepared. Those who prepared us were our parents, of course, our parents prepared us for the moment of their death. When it happened, we already knew what we had to do, and what we had to say, and how we needed to behave. On the second day of our mourning, my brother Magen suggested we would declare, as a family, that we were not seeking revenge. Right after the seven-day morning, I wrote on my X that […] I now had four tasks: stop the war, bring the hostages home, topple the government, and convince myself and everyone that the future would be better. And we started working on all that, and very soon I decided to focus exclusively on the fourth task – on the future. I can illustrate that voyage with two dreams I had. In one dream I saw the Path of Peace, and in the other, the Star of Peace beckoned me.
Before we talk about the two dreams… Many of us found it extremely difficult to describe the reality in words, to put our inner experience into words. Many of us needed a long time to gather words and combine them into phrases.
M: We didn’t need time, because our parents prepared us.
What do you mean by “our parents prepared us”?
M: Like I always say, my father, who was a farmer, always said: the fields aren’t doing well. No matter if it’s in the north or in the south, the situation’s bad. Either you have floods or you have drought, or you have pests, or heat waves, or cold waves. It’s always bad somehow. Even if it’s bad, he’ll plant wheat next year as well, because next year will be better. But it’s his job to see to it that the year is better – to consult with experts, to understand where he got it wrong, to prepare the ground, to do everything he can. We have the ability to change the future. One day, during my mental process, I managed to look at the cells in my body, just as I can see you now. Each cell has an operating system, where it says that the future will be better. And the job of each cell in my body is to see to it that it will be better. It’s very basic.
{Maoz went on to say:}
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to chase them”, my mother said when she gave me the first mandala she prepared for me, before the opening of the Tel Aviv Abraham Hostel in 2016. My mother painted thousands of mandalas during her life. Her studio survived just as she had left it on Friday afternoon. This is a catalog of my mother’s works, when she celebrated her 70th birthday – my sister prepared it, it was six years ago […]. Look.
{Maoz brings the catalogue, and turns the pages where we can see dozens of colorful mandalas. Until he stops next to two paintings. On the left, a mandala with the quote about courage above it, and on the right, the painting of a star. Maoz tells us for the first time about the second dream, the one he has not yet revealed}.
M: I’ve been fulfilling dreams for thirty years. That’s how I live. I dreamt of leaving the kibbutz when I was around four. For ten years I nagged to my entire family, when I was 14 we left. I dreamt of travelling around the world – I travelled twice. I dreamt of opening a guesthouse in the largest Palestinian city in Israel – I opened “Fawzi Azar”, the first. I dreamt of promoting a walking trail that would attract tourists from all over the world – which hadn’t existed in Israel until then – and I started the Jesus Trail with an American partner. I dreamt of opening a hostel chain – I opened Abraham Hostel with other partners. I fulfill every dream. And then, I had my two dreams – the Dream of Tears and the Star Dream. Now look at the catalogue – on one side you have the Dream Mandala, and the other is a Star Mandala. Everything’s planned, there’s no accident.
You’ve talked about the Tears Dream, which you had during the Shiva (week of mourning), about tears washing into a sea which purifies the blood from the earth in a short animated film, and in a few interviews. Could you tell us about it in detail, and especially about the other dream – the Star Dream?
M: I talk about it less often. I don’t need to tell you about the first dream, I already did so in my Ted Talk with Aziz Abu-Sarah. Two nights after the first dream, at the peak of the Shiva, came the second. What’s important […] is that it wasn’t a dream – it felt more like a vision. It was with my eyes open. While having the vision, my entire body hurts as if I’m being torn apart, crazy-crazy-crazy pain. I wake up in the middle of the night in tears, and a star is talking to me. In my room – there’s a start. He asks me if I see him. And I say yes.
Star: Do you recognize me?
M: No.
S: Are you sure?
M: No, I don’t know any star.
S: I’m the Star of Peace.
M: OK, what now?
S: Do you see me?
M: I do.
S: Then come to me.
M: What do you mean? Shlomit is here sleeping beside me, it’s the middle of the night. What do you mean come to me?
S: Here, see my light? Start walking!
And that’s what I’ve been doing, since that night. I know exactly where I’m going, because I’m going to the Peace Star. The path that takes me there is excellent, because it is the Path of Peace, it is already paved. Perhaps I don’t know what’s behind the hill, or beyond the valley, but the road is paved. I’m not confused, I don’t get lost along the way. Because I keep my eye on the star. […]
Many well-known historical and literary figures have experienced an epiphany following an enormous loss, ranging between dream and reality. Some experiences, such as this, may be considered mystical. How would you define yours?
M: Everyone can define it as they want. I know I have never experienced that before, nor after. I can tell you that I believe I’m not the first nor the last who has seen these stars, this star, this path. Some may express it in words, some by feeling, and some would say, it’s nonsense, forget it, what does it matter, star or path? Let each walk their own path. I’m not the first nor the last who has experienced that.
In the beginning, you said something about not being in control, and how fun it is. That everything’s planned and you don’t control it. This sounds like a new model of masculinity […].
M: In the past year, I’ve met the wisest people on Earth. Scientists and researchers, Pope Francis. Insanely knowledgeable and insightful. What is courage? […] to do exactly what others don’t. If everyone dives into the abyss – that’s not heroism. It maybe stupidity, social pressure, joining the herd. It meets elements in our personality that we all have. Heroism is not that. Heroism is doing what you believe in – even if you’re the only one. It’s usually what the majority do not do. […]
You carry masculinity back to its roots in heroism.
M: I don’t’ consider myself a hero, nor as brave. […] For example, my wife went skydiving – I’ll never do that. […] Doing what I do now – that’s in my nature, I do it really easy.
[…] It sounds very complex to manage the emotional together with the rational, facing the world. Do you allow yourself to let loose, in some way?
M: It’s not relevant to me personally. There are lots of ways to cope with grief and trauma, and all are legitimate so long as your coping does not traumatize another.
We all experienced the intermingling of the collective and personal, and vice versa. It’s very difficult to chart their relations. At the time of this writing, many rockets have been fired on northern Israel […] making very difficult to function normally. And now, here we meet. How can you chart the relationships again? How much to devote oneself to others and how much to withdraw?
Maoz: I chart something else entirely. I’m not in the personal-collective conflict. It doesn’t interest me. I only draw the future. Only the future matters. I have already cried for a million victims between the River and the Sea. If it continues they way it goes now – that’s where we’re heading. Certainly if the world keeps sending more weapons and more bombs here. We’re heading towards a million victims between the River and the Sea. Why? There would be insane sadness and suffering and mourning and misery – but that’s where we’re heading. We are now in the abyss. One the one hand, there’s great hope, on the other, total destruction. Everywhere you choose to jump is scary. We can choose which side we want to jump to, each of as an individual. Now we have to decide, whereto – hope or destruction. I have made my choice. It doesn’t take any effort on my part. The present does not interest me. I don’t live in the present.
How are your relations with some of the other conference participants, your partners on the journey? How do you generate discourse around what’s happening? How do you see the future?
M: Amira and Ibrahim from “The Third Narrative” project, for example, are my twin spirits. Like my children, or little siblings. They’re also young than me. So I lost my parents, but I gained so many brothers and sisters, not only Palestinians. Indeed, they are the closets to me. From all over the world, we’re creating a tribe and a global movement of peace and reconciliation. We don’t always agree, we do argue, and there are also difficult conversation. Great. We’re talking about it. I remember once when we met for coffee in Tel Aviv after October 7. They shared difficult things, and so did I until I started crying. I cry a lot. It’s like we’ve been together all our lives.
Can you tall me about a difficult conversation you had?
M: I never argue, I have no arguments. The way I see it, everybody’s right. And then I ask them – right, obviously you’re right, obviously you picked the right side. […] And now I ask – do you want to end the bloodshed and the conflict? Or do you want it to continue? If you want it to continue – great, keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get the same result. And if you want to end the conflict and the cycle of blood and hatred and revenge – choose peace. That’s it. Now either you’re with us, and that’s great, let’s work together. Or you’re not. Still, we will always be open to everyone. Everyone’s always welcome to join in, even if right now they choose to be right and even if just now they choose violence. It’s alright, I have forgiven everything.
You’ve mentioned forgiveness several times. We’re in the month of Elul, the Month of Forgiveness. Can you share your feelings about forgiveness? What does it mean, really?
M: Forgiveness – that’s the road to freedom. In Elul we ask forgiveness from those we have offended. I am not a great Jewish theologian. But we must raise the bar – forgive those who have offended us. Because those who have offended us have in fact taken our fate in their own hands, and are now in control of our destiny. We want to take revenge and punish. We live the pain they’ve caused us and the injustice […]. It has trapped us in fact. Whoever has offended us traps us in a life of trauma and of pain and of loss and of vengeance and sadness. […] I offer what works for me […]. I have chosen radical forgiveness. I have forgiven everyone, past and present. My focus right now is the future. Today I’m a free, happy and creative man. I feel loved. And it’s amazing. […] I simply offer the cure that worked for me to others. It’s a decision everyone can make as an individual, primarily for oneself.
[…] Right now, at what point would you like to be?
M: […] right now, in October, my father would have prepared the fields, and then sow in November, just as he has done for sixty years. That’s exactly what we need to do. We need to prepare the fields, everyone’s hearts, and start sowing – hope, reconciliation and peace.
[1] We all experienced the intermingling of the collective and personal, and vice versa. It’s very difficult to chart their relations. At the time of this writing, many rockets have been fired on northern Israel […] making very difficult to function normally. And now, here we meet. How can you chart the relationships again? How much to devote oneself to others and how much to withdraw?
[2] regegegegeggege
