HIS EXCELLENCY AND THE MONK.pdf

HIS EXCELLENCY AND THE MONK:

A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN

NYANAPONIKA THERA AND DAVID

BEN-GURION

Asaf Federman

Between the years 1956 and 1962 the scholar-monk Nyanaponika Thera and the ﬁrst

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion have exchanged eight long letters. These

letters—published here for the ﬁrst time—expose the extent of Ben-Gurion’s interest in

Buddhism and reveal the Buddhist rhetoric used by one of Sri Lanka’s most inﬂuential

scholars. This rhetoric, which was generally well received by Ben-Gurion, was an

exemplar of ‘Protestant Buddhism’. It is suggested that Ben-Gurion could relate to this

image of Buddhism because it reﬂected his own vision of Judaism that had ‘protestant’

characteristics. The letters contain autobiographical notes, unpublished comments on

the Buddhist concepts of Suffering and Rebirth, and a curious plan to invite

Nyanaponika to Israel.

Introduction

Between the years 1956 and 1962 the Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera

and the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion met and exchanged numerous

letters. Their correspondence is published here for the ﬁrst time and reveals the

nature of their unique intellectual relationship. It shows that the Israeli Prime

Minister’s was interested in Buddhist matters above and beyond what is usually

acknowledged in Israel’s historiography, and that Nyanaponika was actively

seeking involvement in making Buddhism available in Israel. Publishing these

letters is an opportunity to get a glimpse into a rather forgotten aspect of a

Buddhist scholar-monk who had an enormous impact on modern Buddhist

discourse.

The letters contain chapters, almost Buddhist sermons, on two topics that

were important to Ben-Gurion, and are important to many who encounter

Buddhism for the ﬁrst time: the ﬁrst Noble Truth, and Rebirth. In addition, they

Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 10, No. 2, November 2009

ISSN 1463-9947 print/1476-7953 online/09/020197-219

q 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14639940903239769

198 ASAF FEDERMAN

contain a curious exchange of letters about a planned visit to Israel, a visit that

eventually did not take place due to rather mundane circumstances that are

described in the letters themselves (below).

The purpose of this article is to bring the letters more or less as they are, with

only a few introductory comments. I would like, however, to acknowledge those

who made this work possible. I obtained these documents, and many more, from

Mrs Shobrook (now Dr Shobrook) when I visited Sri Lanka in 2006. Shobrook, a

British psychologist who resided in Kandy for a number of years, convinced the

Buddhist Publication Society to photocopy for her some documents from

Nyanaponika’s legacy. As she describes it, some of them are already in a poor

condition and may deteriorate in the tropical climate. The photocopies were

delivered to her brother in Israel, from whom I received them eventually. Some, but

not all, of the letters are also found in the Ben-Gurion Heritage Archive, and other

documents from which I quote at the end of this article are kept in Kibbutz Givat

Haim Ihud, Israel, in the archive of the Feniger family. I wish to thank Ven.

Nyanatusita, the editor in chief of the Buddhist Publication Society, Dr Shobrook and

Mrs Tamar Bar-Ilan Feniger for allowing me to read and reproduce the documents.

Ben-Gurion’s interest in Buddhism

The Zionist leader and Israel’s ﬁrst prime minister, David Ben-Gurion had

complex relations with religion in general, and with Judaism in particular. On the

one hand he is known as the architect of the Status Quo, inﬂuencing the passage

of laws favourable to the Orthodox-religious community. On the other hand, on a

personal and intellectual level, Ben-Gurion rejected the authority of Rabbinical

laws, did not observe religious holidays and was proud to have never set a foot in

an Israeli synagogue (Zameret 1999). To that we may now add an engagement

with Buddhism, above and beyond what has been acknowledged in Israel’s

historiography. This engagement is described in some details in a series of letters

that Ben-Gurion exchanged with the scholar-monk Nyanaponika Thera between

1956 and 1962.

Ben-Gurion himself was not an intellectual although he had close and often

charged relations with Israel’s intellectual milieu (Keren 1983). His relations with

Buddhism, it is suggested, should be understood in this context. In Buddhism he

saw a system very similar to his vision of Judaism, and yet different enough as to

articulate the uniqueness of the modern Jewish situation. This was supported by

the Therav¯din version that Ben-Gurion encountered through Nyanaponika Thera.

It was precisely Protestant Buddhism that seemed so familiar to Ben-Gurion,

whose version of Judaism had ‘Protestant’ characteristics.

Ben-Gurion saw Judaism as an ancient system of universal ethics that should

be learned from direct reading in the old scriptures. He rejected the authority of

Rabbinical law (Halakha), and famously organized a Bible (Mikra) reading group at

his house. For him, true religion had nothing to do with ritual and custom, and true

spiritual meaning was to be achieved through direct ethical engagement and the

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN NYANAPONIKA AND BEN-GURION 199

study of scripture. He envisioned a new Jewish Man in the land of Israel,

disconnected from the irrelevant intellectual setting of Exile, and reconnected to

what he saw as the real roots: the teachings of the prophets. In this light, he

understood both Judaism and Buddhism as ‘teachings’ and ethics. It is possible

that, although this is not explicitly mentioned in the correspondence below, the

rise of Buddhism as national religion, restoring past glories, made it particularly

receptive to a modern Jewish mind.

Nyanaponika’s Protestant Buddhism is expressed in the letters in several

places. He vigorously tries to defend the concept of rebirth by appealing to

science and modern philosophy; 1 he presents meditation as a lay practice that

brings mundane beneﬁts; 2 and expresses his wish that Buddhist literature

becomes available in Israel’s vernacular. 3 In his ﬁrst letter he even expresses the

wish that more people in Israel would either adopt the Buddhist religion or at least

ﬁnd the solace in Buddhist teachings and meditation. 4 As Gombrich has

demonstrated, this duality of religion that also transcends religion is characteristic

of Protestant Buddhism (Gombrich 1988, 199ff.). Nyanaponika was also a member

of the Amarapura Nikaya, whose monks originally lead the protesting reaction to

Christianity (Gombrich 1988, 179), and his views betray his background and the

zeit geist in 1950s Ceylon.

The correspondence between the two is rich and deserves detailed analysis

that could not be achieved in this space. The exchange of questions and answers

between ‘his excellency’, as Nyanaponika addresses him, and the scholar-monk

echoes the ancient genre of the Milinda-pa˜h¯,orBen-Hamelekh ve-Hanazir

(‘The Prince and the Monk’)—two books that are mentioned in the letters

themselves. 5 The ‘king’ here, however, did not show signs of full conversion at any

time. It is doubtful that Nyanaponika sought to actually convert Ben-Gurion, at

least not in the Judeo-Christian sense of the term, and Ben-Gurion himself never

seems to have thought of abandoning Judaism. Nevertheless, he deﬁnitely saw no

problem in engaging in Buddhist doctrinal debates, meditation, and did not

hesitate to express great admiration for the Buddha.

Nyanponika’s interest in Israel

Nyanaponika Thera was born in Germany in 1901 to a Jewish family with the

name Siegmund (Shlomo) Feniger. As he indicates in one of the letters, he lost his

job when the Nazis came to power, and managed to leave to Austria with his

mother. 6 Later, he brought her from Austria to Sri Lanka just before the

occupation of Austria in 1939. His childhood and youth communities all

disappeared during the war. By the 1950s there were no Jews left in his parent’s

village, and Nyanaponika, who spent the war years in an internment camp in India,

seem to have lost all contacts with his friends and family. There is no reason to

doubt that he has lived happily as a monk without too many ties to his past.

However, when meeting Ben-Gurion in Rangoon in 1961, he heard from one of the

delegates that his cousin Jizchak Feniger lived in Israel. They later exchanged

200 ASAF FEDERMAN

many letters, and Feniger became instrumental in the negotiation around the plan

to visit Israel.

Ben Gurion invited Nyanaponika to visit Israel, but committed to covering

only part of the expenses. This was certainly a result of his charged relations with

Jewish orthodox circles: as the prime minister he could not ofﬁcially invite a non-

Jewish religious delegation. Somewhat ironically to the situation of Buddhism in

Ceylon, there was a serious concern that such ofﬁcial invitation to Israel would be

interpreted as an invitation of a Buddhist mission. Nyanaponika’s visit had to be

private. However, his main connection in Israel, his cousin Jizchak Feniger, was a

member of a Kibbutz, a collective community that did not allow individual money.

The cousins eventually never met.

In his ﬁrst letter to Ben-Gurion in 1956 Nyanaponika mentions his close

friend, Max Kreutzberger, with whom he lost contact during the War. To his

delight, in 1960 he receives a letter from the Leo Baeck Institute, gently inquiring

whether he, the Buddhist monk, had ever been called Feniger. 7 Shalom

Adler-Rudel, the author of that letter, indicates that he was reminded of ‘an

acquaintance ... a Mr. Feniger who left Berlin for Ceylon in 1935’ and later informs

him that his old friend Max lives in New York. Between 1968 and 1981 Max’s house

in Switzerland became the ‘base camp’ for Nyanaponika’s annual visits to Europe

(Bodhi 1995, 16), which was evidently much more tolerant towards Buddhist

‘missionaries’ than Israel.

What led to the correspondence

It is not clear what sparked Ben-Gurion’s initial interest in Buddhism. The ﬁrst

mention of Buddhism in his diary is from 1954. 8 He wrote that he had met Prof.

Narendra Deva, and that ‘the old man is well versed in Buddhism’. At the time he

clearly had some knowledge of Buddhism, because in 1952 he had written to

Dr Emanuel Olsvanger encouraging him to translate the Upanisads, and asking

whether he knew P¯ li as well. 9 Ben-Gurion was an avid reader, and even more so

an avid collector of books. This probably sparked his interest in the ﬁrst place, as a

number of documents suggest. The Burmese Prime Minister U Nu visited Israel in

1955 and the two leaders became close friends. Their friendship certainly

inﬂuenced Ben-Gurion’s interest. U Nu, a dedicated Buddhist himself, sent Ben-

Gurion some books on Buddhism from London after his visit. This, apparently, was

not enough. In June 1956 Ben-Gurion met with an Israeli lieutenant-colonel who

was on his way to Japan, and deposited with him a list of books. Another Israeli

ofﬁcial who received the list in Japan was unable to locate any of them. He

mentioned the problem to the Ceylonese ambassador to Japan, and the latter

suggested that Ben-Gurion would approach the Ceylonese Prime Minister

directly. 10 At this point this story meets ours. Nyanaponika’s ﬁrst letter to

Ben-Gurion followed up from that ofﬁcial request to the Ceylonese government,

and marks the beginning of a seven-year correspondence. 11

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN NYANAPONIKA AND BEN-GURION 201

The letters are presented here in chronological order, with some necessary

omissions, and with minor corrections. The content is divided into two sections,

corresponding to two intervals of exchange: August 1956–January 1957, a period

that ends with Nyanaponika’s ‘Notes on the Buddhist Concept of Suffering’; and

January–October 1962, which contains long comments on the Buddhist concept

of ‘rebirth’ and an account of the unsuccessful attempts to bring Nyanaponika to

Israel. In between, the prime minister and the monk met in Rangoon in December

1961, while Ben-Gurion was visiting U Nu.

1956–1957: about the concept of suffering

21 August 1956 12

Your Excellency,

May I ﬁrst introduce myself as a Buddhist monk of a Jewish origin, born in

Germany. My late parents were Eastern Jews, born in Galizia (Austria). I am 55 years

of age, and entered the Buddhist Monastic Order (Sangha) in Ceylon 20 years ago

under the well-known German monk-scholar Nyanatiloka Mahathera. I am now a

citizen of Ceylon.

A few days ago, a Government ofﬁcial told me that his department had

received a request of yours for Buddhist literature ... I request that you kindly

inform me of your wishes, and I shall do my best to obtain these books for you

through my lay friends here (we Buddhist monks do not possess or handle money).

In December 1954, when I went to Burma as a delegate to a Buddhist

conference, I had the pleasure to meet in Rangoon the then Minister of Israel,

Mr. David Hacohen, who received me very friendly. I was very happy, indeed, when

he told me that you are earnestly interested in the study of Buddhism. ... From

Ceylon I had sent you some English books of mine, and a friend had sent you

English books of the Venerable Nyanatiloka. This was in the beginning of 1955.

I shall be obliged to you for kindly letting me know whether all these books have

reached you safely, so that I may inform the senders who have offered them

to you.

I was deeply moved by the fact that even in these grave days for Eretz Israel

and with your great burden of responsibility, your interest in the Buddha’s

teaching has not slackened, as I conclude from the circumstance of your recent

letter to Ceylon. It is my ﬁrm conviction that, to one who understands the essence

of the Dhamma and tries to apply certain of its methods of mental training, it will

bestow an increased inner strength and capacity to deal with the task of every-day

life. Insight into reality will bestow detachment. Detachment will bestow greater

calm and strength for circumspective action, because it will ward off anxiety and

passion which may cloud the mind and lead to wrong decisions. Detachment born

of insight will not lessen the devotion and zeal given to any worthwhile work in

hand; on the contrary, it will create a reserve of strength, because one will no

longer identify oneself entirely with any given situation. In the deepest recesses of

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