Watching the knesset today, busy with getting rid of amazing leaders of our country while the hostages starve, I couldn’t help thinking of the first time I learned academically about Democracy.  My teacher for two years was a Quaker named Phillip Schuyler Benjamin.  I forgot which numerals followed his name, but I remember every philosopher and historian we read, and I clung to every concept.  The meaning of democracy was brought to us gradually, from Hobbes to Locke to deToqueville to Thoreau, and I distilled the idea that government exists to improve our lives, all of our lives.  I learned that the majority gets to choose who are in office, but their function is to follow a system by which all citizens are protected to live their lives as they wish as long as they do not impose their will on others.  

As I watched the knesset fanatics I kept thinking about the gentle Mr. Benjamin and one story he told about a Quaker meeting he attended where no one spoke – for hours.  Suddenly one man got up and said,  “Two skeletons were in the closet for centuries.  Suddenly, one turned to the other and said, ‘You know, if we had any guts we’d get out of here.'”