But What If?
10/31/2024 11:46:05 AM
Dear Friend,
You invited me to have a chat, as you didn't much love my Yom Kippur sermon. Our talk was amenable, it was peaceful, and as I have always known you to be, it was authentic. I know that you are an avowed Marxist, as you affirmed yesterday, insisting that
everything ultimately comes down to, “follow the money.” You echoed the belief that were it not for oil, no one would really give a wit about the Middle East. I don’t know if that is true. But I do know that long before oil would become the currency of the entire world, there were these people there in a region they came to call Israel and Judea. And their relationship to the world, to God, to others around them produced a text that gave birth to the world’s greatest idea – an inalienable right to live in the world with freedom of being and of choice for every human. Yes, it’s true that that same text recognizes and even, at times, affirms the reality of slavery, but never without a recognition that this isn’t the way it is supposed to be, nor with a recognition that it
should stay this way in the future.
You asked me yesterday, “What is the essence of Judaism?” I told you I think it is about balance through the recognition of truths to be found in opposing notions of existence. Let me clarify. Judaism teaches us that God is both imminent and transcendent; present and beyond reach; that to live in the world as Jews, we must embrace both our particularistic identity through observance, calendar, and learning AND we must embrace our universal identity as humans, tied in destiny and purpose with our fellow, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality. More than 3000 years ago, Judaism built its tradition around the story of the one God calling out to humanity and telling us to Lech Lecha, go forth into a land that God would show us and there become a blessing. And yet we are also a tradition that maintains no required affirmation of God’s existence.
Over and over, Jewish philosophy challenges us to build Jewish society and to not turn the stranger away. Most anthropologists insist that there is no extant evidence that the Exodus story actually took place. And yet, it is the Exodus story that we Jews choose to tell from generation to generation, not to claim, “Woe as us,” but instead to affirm how crucial it is to remember the sojourns of the stranger. We are to balance our minds and our hearts, at times affirming one end of these spectra, and at times affirming the other. I frankly believe it is this penchant for being the ultimate “Both-And” religion that has
been the source of our greatest strength and the greatest amount of disdain from our enemies. Their efforts in response to us have been to attempt to take parts of Judaism and disregard the others -to affirm that THEY have discerned the TRUTH in Judaism, whereas the rest of it is poppycock. But we Jews have continued to insist that its all of the above – we stand at both ends of the spectra AND we stand at the middle, for one central reason – perhaps the most important reason of all, perhaps the most essential element of Jewish tradition – Humility. The principal notion of monotheism isn’t that we
KNOW who God is. It is that God’s Oneness is so immense, so beyond crating and containing, and limiting to an idea or even a set of ideas, that all we can do is humbly strive to emulate the best attributes of God as our Torah defines them. As God is kind,
so must we strive to be. As God is powerful for the sake of the needy, so must we be. As God is wise, so must we work to become so. And as the great sage Hillel taught, “All the rest is commentary, go and learn.”
I asked you yesterday to imagine, “What if?” What if it is true that Jew-hatred is actually behind the irrationality of so much of the world’s reactions to Israel, just as it has always been behind the reactions to Jews themselves? What if it is true that the UN Human Rights Council, comprised of representatives of the worst human rights violating countries in the world, insists on bringing sanctions against Israel to the exclusion of true violators, is actually driven by Jew-hatred? What if the “academic freedom” you refer to that seeks to completely absolve the role of Israel’s Arab neighbors from their responsibility for the constant violence beset upon the land and people of Israel, as well as the roadblocks they have continually created to keep the Palestinians in a state of malaise that serves as a constant jus defensionis (cause for defense) for Israel, is actually part of the plan, driven by Jew-hatred? And that forcing Israelis to live with and next to a stateless people, whose status as refugees, has been maintained by UN sanction, unlike every other post WWII refugees in the world, is driven by Jew-hatred? Have you ever heard of a UN effort to help dispossessed Iraqi Jews (who in 1948 were 25% of the city of Baghdad), regain their homes, their businesses, from which they were illegally expelled? Have you ever heard of a call for a Jewish right of return to Baghdad,
Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, Tehran, not to mention Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, the list goes on? No! Only the Palestinians’ refugee status, whose identity as a nation was first established in 1967, is considered sacrosanct. And that perhaps, were it not for this singularly one-sided view driven by Jew hatred, their lives could have been vastly improved, had the Arab countries done for them, what the Jewish world, inside and outside of Israel, has done for its own?
I brought up this notion that no one who is anti-Israel thinks that it is at all legitimate that one should ask about why Israel is the only country blamed for the state of Gazans since 2005. They have said to me, why should Egypt worry about them? They weren’t Egyptians. In 1948, they weren’t Palestinians either (at least no more than the Jews, Muslims, and Arabs that lived there), let’s be clear. But more importantly, the casus belli narrative of Israel’s Arab enemies has over and over been driven by the plight of the Palestinians and the focus on potential peace negotiations with these countries has been based upon the Palestinians. If they are truly the cause celebre of Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, wouldn’t it stand to reason that these countries would do everything they could to improve the lives of their beloved Palestinians? Of course. Unless the real cause celebre is Jew hatred, and/or a convenient scapegoat to distract their peoples from the graft and corruption their leaders have engaged in for decades? But of course, if you want to follow the money, that is indeed where Marxism will lead you, because every time Jews were threatened, someone was getting rich or at least working to protect their wealth. The only difference since 1948, is that thanks to the state of Israel, the existence and survival of the Jewish
people is not in doubt.
All this is to say that yes, I am offended by your sign that states, “Stop the Zionist Genocide!” There is so much more to write about this, but I’m going to save it for next week’s blog. For now, the main reason why I’m offended by the sign is because whether you intend for it to do so or not, it threatens my life and the life of my family and community, and frankly, yours. Due mostly to the outrageous and vitriolic rhetoric against Israel, and therefore Jews, any distinction between Zionism and Judaism has vanished. The violent language that has arisen, especially over this past year, has created a situation in which those prone to violence have been given the excuse. How do you act to make a difference against the “Zionist Pigs?” Hurt a Jew. No matter how
you slice it, that is what your sign is affirming and for which it has given permission.