The extremists are talking too loudly, and everyone is convinced that only he is on the right side. It’s not just Jews against Arabs. It’s the Orthodox versus those who don’t think they can keep all six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Bible. It’s rich people versus poor people. At some point, something came over Israel so that everyone has his own ideas—and everyone else is an enemy. It’s a dialogue among deaf people and it is getting more and more serious.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the divisions within society and the dangers of extreme ideologies that lead people to view others as enemies.
This quote by Reuven Rivlin reflects on the polarizing nature of contemporary discussions, especially within conflicts like those in Israel. Rivlin points out that the extremists dominate the conversation, creating a perception that only their views are valid while others are marginalized. He illustrates the various conflicts at play, not just in a religious sense between Jews and Arabs, but also socially and economically, emphasizing that these divisions foster an environment where listening and understanding disappear, leading to a dialogue where opposing sides become increasingly deaf to one another's perspectives.
In practice
During a lecture on social justice, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of listening to all perspectives.
The depth of this conflict, which is more than one hundred years old, requires us to find a way to communicate... so that the residents of the Middle East, Jews and Arabs alike, can live not as if they were forced to live together, but rather destined to live together.
We must remember that Islam is not an enemy, and we have no war with Islam.
I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
I’m free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but I can’t really understand what it means. All I know is I’m totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free? I don’t know, and I give up thinking about it.
Just because it's on the radio doesn't mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our senses.
The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.
We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
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