Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Eilu V’Eilu:  But There is a More Right in Israel’s Right to Exist

One of my early family trips growing up took us to Florida.  Of course, where else do Midwest Jews go on vacation?  My grandparents rented an escape to stay each winter for a couple of months; and the entire family, aunts, uncles and cousins would schedule out the overlap and our own time with our grandparents.  Beach days, rainy days at the outlet malls and of course the big day, the day we visited Disney World.  The epic family journey treating the younger generation to thrills, exploration and over stimulation, while the older generation struggled to meet everyone’s needs and expectations, battling the sun, the tummy aches from too many corn dogs and entertaining us, the kids, during those long lines.  Recently, my mother recounted a memorable, well sort of memorable, moment from one of those trips.  It was the occasion for all of the cousins to visit the fabulous World of Disney together.  My younger brother, Zack, and I were debating, actually arguing about what Disney World was really about.  For me, it was the adventurous rides, the roller coasters and things that make adults dizzy.  For my brother, a little more tame than I, it was the attractions, the Small World boat ride and Epcot Center that was Disney World.  Apparently, we argued for days leading up to THE DAY.  Back and forth, we debated what Disney World was truly about and how we would spend our much anticipated visit.  That was, until a voice, perhaps of reason, entered the fray.  Like an other worldly voice, my Aunt Deborah spoke up and said, “You are both right!”  “Disney World is so fabulous, it offers so much and we can do all the things you are arguing about,” she said.  “We will make sure you each get to enjoy the day!” 

Arguing and Debating are certainly part of our Jewish tradition.  From our ancestors in Genesis, to the Israelites debating Moses, from the people's disregard of the prophets to the Rabbis of the Talmud, argument and discourse are rooted in what it means to be Jewish.  The old adage reminds us:  Two Jews, at least three opinions.  When it comes to debates, discussions and conflict, this season, the Yamim Noraim - the Days of Awe, are an important time to consider how we argue, and how we fight.  As we enter this time, welcome this New Year, we have work to do.  I’m not talking about the chicken soup, the brisket and kugel, rather it is the work of Teshuvah - our repentance.  We will always argue and debate throughout life, it is part of being human.  But, the way we engage in that debate goes a long way.  That is where our true character is witnessed.   

Among the most famous debates in our tradition rank those of the great sages Hillel and Shammai.  In fact, many of us may be less familiar, if at all, with Shammai and that’s because of the result of one debate in particular.  In the Babylonian Talmud, we study this great disagreement.  It is recounted by Rabbi Abba in the name of Samuel that Hillel and Shammai argued for 3 years; both asserting that the Halacha, the law, was in accordance with their own view.  In an almost magical moment, as can happen in the amazing world of Talmud, we find a phrase used by rabbinic literature as the lowest form of prophecy, but, nonetheless, divine in origin.  “יצאה בת קול ואמרה אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים,” “These AND those [literally both] are the words of the living God.” This phrase, the bat kol, is used to continue the point, stating that the Halacha, the law, follows Hillel.  A grand and phenomenal moment for sure.  In the words of the great Rabbi Louis Jacobs, the bat kol, is the lowest level of prophecy but a mighty powerful voice. 

The sages of our tradition go on to further understand and explain how this Eilu V’Eilu - These AND Those - statement is supposed to work.  If both are the words of the living God, Rabbi Abba continues, what merited Hillel to the Halacha, the law?  Talmud puts the matter to rest by teaching us that it was because they, Beit Hillel, Hillel and his disciples were pleasant and demonstrated humility in the arguments.  But most importantly, they studied their own decisions and those of Shammai and even included Shammai’s rulings in stating their own.  It is this last piece that becomes the ultimate lesson.  Being pleasant and demonstrating humility are asked of us throughout our lives.  But in the arena of discourse, debate, disagreement and perhaps battle, understanding the other side’s argument, their stance and their situation must be at the fore.  This is about how we argue, debate and even fight.  While both Shammai and Hillel’s rulings represented the, “Words of the Living God,” it was ruled that Hillel’s pleasant, humble demeanor AND recognizing the value of another’s opinion becomes our ideal to aim for.

Jacob ben Wolf Kranz, the Maggid of Dubno shared the following parable in the 18th century.  He spoke about a prince who assigned a group of workmen the gigantic project of constructing imposing buildings and a spacious palace, among other edifices.  Before turning the completed structures over to their owner, they carefully inspected every nook and cranny to make certain that nothing was overlooked and that the prince would find nothing lacking.  At this solemn season it is fitting for us, too, to research our ways and to take stock of our behavior, values and opinions.  On Rosh Hashanah it is incumbent upon us to inquire into, and evaluate in retrospect our dealings during the past year so that we may repent; lest God find that our performance was incomplete.

As we, too, embark on a new year, we are obligated to look at the world around us with a different measure of examination; a newly constructed ruler.  For the Jewish reality is not only about black and white of right versus wrong, but also about the how, the way we take responsibility, the way we own our rights and how we engage the other.      

Tonight I want to share words unlike any other I have from this or any bema.  I have prepared these thoughts because I truly believe that now something is different.  These words share what I believe is among the most pressing issues for the Jewish People.  That, this summer, the geo-political stage was once again occupied by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Many of you heard me speak again and again about the situation on the ground and our own role as Jews of the Diaspora through the summer months.  As we celebrate, yes, and welcome this New Year on this Rosh Hashanah 5775, we must ensure that Israel, our Jewish State, is more understood than in the past.  We must argue and debate for Israel’s right as a sovereign state to protect and defend itself.  It is our responsibility, in part, to engage in examining what is right, what is wrong and how to ensure a better and safer future for Israel. 

Israel’s actions as a country against Gaza have, and continue to, draw much criticism.  From the use of force at all to the collateral damage, Israel has been the brunt of much hostility on the stage of public opinion.  I must state clearly that I cannot defend the loss of life, personal property and ability to earn a living on either side of the conflict.  Yet, in order to see, and then hopefully begin to achieve, a better tomorrow, we must examine the conflict, understand the arguments as they are shared and take steps, albeit baby steps perhaps, towards a different reality. 

Hillel and Shammai were said to engage in this debate for three years.  Well, for more than a century the Arab-Israeli conflict has ebbed and flowed.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been front and center at least since the declaration of independence of the State of Israel in 1947.  We must understand also that part of the complexity of this reality is determining its starting point.  I must pick this, the Modern State of Israel’s existence, as a point of departure.  As such, this debate is now more than three-quarters of a century old.  When it comes to Israel, I am an ardent Zionist.  And yet, this debate, this conflict is reminiscent of that belonging to Hillel and Shammai in the Talmud.

I used to feel differently.  I used to believe the sense of “right” could be shared, but as I have taught, and discussed this summer, the most recent conflict is different.  It has a different character to it and rather than a situation of figuring out who is more right or who is less wrong, there is a right.  In our case, Zionism, a Jewish state is Eilu, one side that is right.   And, the right of what we consider the Palestinian people to exist, to have a national home, that is Eilu, too.  Both sides, in this ultimate sense are what our tradition calls, “דברי אלוהים חיים,” “Words of the Living God.”  However, it is now clear that the avenues chosen by Gaza’s leadership, which I will, but need not remind you, is Hamas - a recognized terrorist organization, are not, or at least no longer, Eilu, and they are certainly not of the Living God. 

Using this litmus test provided by our tradition, about the conflict between Hillel and Shammai, we know that neither side in a war can be pleasant and neither may be unequivocally right or wrong.  Humility is different, however.  We must understand that Israel’s tactics in this situation represent the highest regard for human life in the realm of war and armed conflict.  Consider the words of Donniel Hartman, who wrote, “I know that the fact that every country and army facing similar circumstances would either act in the same way or take far more extreme measures…” but he goes on to write that this reality, “doesn’t convince any of our critics of the legitimacy of our actions.”  So, turning to the final qualifier in our tradition’s test, the one that determined the merits of Hillel's argument, we must look at how each side views, and considers the other.  This, like the dating of such a conflict, is complex and muddy.  But I believe there is merit to the following simplification.  Israel recognizes that the Palestinian People need a national home.  Yes, some actions by the State send conflicting messages, however the current government not only sees this as inevitable, but as a must for enduring peace to be possible.  Gaza’s government, Hamas, states something quite different in nature in its own charter, stating, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”  It goes on to state later in the charter, “Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.”  This clearly belies any legitimate right for Israel to exist.  This articulates how Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, does not recognize the right of Jews to exist nor does it consider Israel’s views or needs. 

Both causes are just and right.  However, the way, the how of the Palestinian cause in Gaza has evolved to employ Hamas as its leadership and this has forever changed the character of its reality.  It takes what once was a more right versus a less wrong situation to what has now become about the right to exist, as a nation, as a people and as human beings.  Israel’s right to exist, right as a sovereign state to defend itself and its people is just and must be square one; the beginning of the conversation.  It creates a situation in which the Palestinians of Gaza must examine their own deeds, their own decisions and choices of leadership to reestablish their case, and only being a just and right cause if it recognizes the right of others, the right of Israel and Jews to exist, peaceably. 

We know this now.  It leaves us wondering what will be?  What can we do?  Yes, Israel has this right and the Palestinians of Gaza have abandoned that right by their decisions and their actions.  But this leaves us wanting for a path, a different road to hoe in order to at least believe in a better tomorrow.  We, Israel - Am Yisrael, the people of Israel and the Modern State of Israel have been asked again and again to justify the nation’s actions.  Israel, too, has gone astray in the past.  After all, this is the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe.  It is a time when we are charged to examine our own inconsistencies, our own failings, as individuals and as a nation, a people.  This is not the time for us to point fingers at others.  So we ask ourselves that question too.  How?  What in this reality of conflict do we justify.  In the great saga of our ancestor Joseph, there comes a great moment before Joseph, then the vizier of Egypt, reveals his identity to his brothers.  Recall that Joseph had been cast aside by his own brothers to die.  Later, when the brothers sojourn for food in Egypt, Joseph recognizes them and has stolen property placed in their possessions.  Upon revealing the seeming theft, Judah cries out to the vizier of Egypt, “מה נאמר לאדני מה נדבר ומה נצטדק - What can we say to my lord?  What can we say, how could we ever prove our innocence?”  

This, too, is our response.  How can we prove innocence?  There is blood on Israel’s hands, that cannot be disputed.  Golda Meir once said, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children.  We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.  We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”  It is not about demonstrating Israel’s innocence to the world, it IS about arguing again and again, until it is not just understood, not just accepted, but the norm, that Israel has the right to exist, that Israel has the right as a sovereign nation to defend itself and that Jews throughout the world are accepted as partners in creating tomorrow, participating among the nations of the world. 

The complexity of looking within, understanding our own Jewish reality in moving forward, increases because we have four sides to our own internal debate.  We have the hawks and the doves in Israel and we have the liberal and the conservative here at home amongst American Jews.  These must work together, but better:  WE MUST FIND OUR OWN UNITY IN A MODERN ZIONISM.  We must understand that while there is Eilu and Eilu in the hawkish and the dovish arguments for Israel and Zionism, while there is Eilu and Eilu on the liberal and the conservative here at home, to fully be:  Words of the Living God, they must come closer, exist together.  Then the right has a chance to be evident.  We are part of that, but as one prominent rabbi recently lamented, the American scene is struggling in supporting even this basic notion of Israel.  Rabbi Andy Bachman recently shared:

I worry about American Jewry on this trip more than I ever have.  I worry about their increasing alienation from the notion of a Jewish people, I worry about our understandable abhorrence of the killing of innocents that too quickly shifts to blame, guilt and distance from Israel; and I worry about a kind of liberal American Jewish hopelessness toward the Jewish national project, the dystopian other-expression of the very spirit that created this improbable, historically miraculous, wildly creative yet weighted, complex, imperfect nation. 

And finally, I worry (with no small amount of paranoia) of a Hamas operative, reading these words, laughing and rubbing his hands in a diabolically cartoonish gesture:  The Jews, he says, can be worn down.  Eventually, they'll give up and leave.        

It is not about giving up.  It is not about giving in.  It IS about recognizing the needs of humanity.  That life is about Eilu V’Eilu - these AND those; respect for the other and for self.  The debate between Hillel and Shammai raged until the answer was so apparent it seemed divine.  The answer wasn’t even about the law itself, but about our conduct. 

The reality in Israel, of Zionism and for world Jewry has been shaken in the last months.  Anti-Israel, Anti-Zionism, has become Anti-Semitism.  This has put us, the People and Nation of Israel, on the defensive.  We must be on the offensive; not military offensive, but we must search our opinions, our values, our beliefs and behaviors to know what our argument is, how it takes into account the other side.  Then, and only then, are we living in the image of Hillel’s disciples, being and living דברי אלוהים חיים, the words of the living God.  We must:  Travel to Israel to understand our love and attachment, and our need as the Jewish people for a Jewish land.  We must:  Listen, truly listen, to all the arguments within and among our own people and those of others, even if we determine them unfounded - WE MUST HEAR THEM.  We must:  Stand up for Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state with its right to protect and defend itself and therefore, doing all we can in this New Year to ensure Israel, our Jewish State, is more understood than in the past.

May all those whose lives are forever impacted by conflict discover peace, in our day and speedily.

עשה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל עמו ישראל ועל כל יושבי תיבל
May the Source of Peace on High bring peace to us, all Israel and all who dwell on earth.

Shanah Tovah U’mitukah

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