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Jewish Pride Brett Krichiver – Mishpatim Jan. 31, 2003 This past week, many of us crowded around radios and televisions to hear our President give his first State of the Union Address. This ritual has become one of the most important moments for every United States President, especially one who is looking for an opportunity to send his country to war. As I listened in, first in my car, and then at home on TV, I was struck by how different it felt to be listening to this Address as a Jew, than what I imagined I would be feeling were I not one. Many times in my young life I have felt a sort of “otherness” about being Jewish, but something felt different this time. The word I would use to describe how I felt listening to the President, was “Pride.” I was proud to be a Jew, proud to feel the Jew’s place in this world, proud to have a connection to the State of Israel, and proud for our part in the American process. Now, please do not misunderstand my intentions. I am not proud of the way in which President Bush is promoting this imminent war. I am not proud of the way in which Israel sometimes struggles with the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs. And I am certainly not proud when I think of recent surges of Anti-Semitism around the world, in Europe and the Middle East. This is not what I mean when I say I am proud to be a Jew. Pride is different than Honor, and in recent days, Integrity and Honor seem to be in short supply. We do not honor ourselves, or our tradition, when we ignore due process, when we take up arms against our enemies, when we use violence instead of searching for more real, more complex solutions for real, complex problems in the world. But the pride that I felt during the State of the Union Address had more to do with my own place in the world, than these external factors. This is a powerful time to be a Jew. We have witnessed the rebirth of the Jewish State – only fifty years ago. We, in America, experience a level of freedom unheard of and unique throughout all of human history. This has, in turn, led to a more varied and rich Jewish culture than has ever existed before. In the eleventh century, Jews and Muslims lived peacefully together throughout the Middle East, and together achieved great heights in philosophy, mathematics, science, and literature. Not since this time have so many different peoples come together in a free society to create and progress humanity. Just look at the major success of many ethnic groups in the arts currently. There are many new “musicians, such as Dan Nichols and Rick Recht, who write unique blends of Jewish music and modern “rock.” Look at the success of the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which recently passed the $250 million mark, more than ten times what the producers thought the movie would ever make. More and more Americans are expressing their own culture in creative ways, and America is the only place where that could happen. It is a wonderful time to be proud you’re a Jew. And so I feel pride. I listen to George W Bush speak about the goals and accomplishments of this great country, and I feel pride, as if the Jews have had a part to play in the development of this crazy dream called America. It was the dream of a country founded on freedom which willed our grandparents, yours and mine, to risk life and limb, to suffer on countless boats through countless passages to the New World. And it was an extremely similar dream which propelled others of our grandparents to risk life and limb to create a Jewish state, one that would also provide freedom for the Jews of the world. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we have accomplished both of these goals. Israel and America represent the very first of their kind in perhaps millions of years of human evolution – the successful creation of a state which provides governance for it’s people, by it’s people. But now on to the second half of this D’var Torah, this word of Torah. Of course we do not live in a utopian society. Any of you who heard the State of the Union Address perhaps also curdled a bit as our President described what was happening today to America’s enemies. With an almost locker room quality of bragging, Bush assured all of America that those terrorists who once threatened our security, “have been arrested or otherwise dealt with,” and that they will not be a problem for America in the future. We have all read the newspapers, and we know of the masses of casualties which have already been suffered as a result of American action in Afghanistan. All of it trying desperately to answer the most basic question, “How come they hate us so much?” My personal belief, perhaps shared by some of you, is that war is sometimes necessary, sometimes the only appropriate response to real threats in the world. But how can we justify any use of force, when we know that it only breeds more hatred, a new generation of terrorists, and that each oppressive regime will only be replaced by another oppressive regime, unless we break the cycle of violence, and bring peace to the region. It is a terrifying time to be a Jew. And it has been a terrifying time to be an American as well. During our year in Israel, Tami and I chose to visit Cairo, Egypt, to see the powerful cultural artifacts which remain literally from the cradle of civilization. During out visit we obviously took many precautions about where we were and who was with us. The biggest struggle was whether it was safer for us to appear as Americans, or as Israeli tourists. These are both identities which surely would dangerous if we were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is a terrifying thought to know that there really is evil in the world, and that we have enemies in the world, who wish us harm. Often I wonder why, as such a small percentage of the world, Jews seems so prominent in both positive and negative ways. We make up less than two percent of the world population, but if you watch CNN, you get the impression that we are often at the center of world events. As I listened to President Bush’s address, feeling pride swell up, I realized that this world-wide attention was the reason. It is scary to have so much attention focused on the Jews, but I am also proud that Jews are involved in so many of the world’s most important issues right now. For example, let me paint a few brush-strokes of the very complicated picture that is modern-day Israel. Here is how I see the situation. Israel finds herself in the most complicated situation imaginable. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, what any other country would do is the one thing that Israel cannot do. When the “American” colonists explored their Manifest Destiny, that is, the concept that they were destined to rule the new continent, they encountered many native peoples, who they promptly disposed of. Recent scholarship suggests that the numbers of native Americans whom we displaced many be drastically underestimated. We wanted the New World, and so we took it. Now, no one would argue that we actually had the right to do this to the Native Americans. I would imagine the best defense one could make at this point is to simply apologize, and to try to move on. History is written by the winners. Next time we’ll try to do better. Well, as it turns out, Israel is the next time. Israel was given to the Jews at the same time that Jordan was created for the Palestinians, a free Palestinian state. But when the displaced Palestinians said, “no,” any other country would have dealt with the issue in brutal fashion, any other country would have followed the model of America, claiming it’s destiny. I am proud of Israel because they did not slaughter the Palestinians in 1948, did not take Jordan or Syria in 1967, and to this day attempts to find a way to overcome the many obstacles that lay on the road to peace. In doing so, Israel is paving the road for all countries to see how they might deal with conflict in a new way. Violence cannot be the answer, but security must be the primary concern. And as Israel struggles with how to find a balance, we all watch on from the wings, ready for the entire process to either succeed, or suddenly fall apart in disaster. It is the great experiment of the twentieth century, and every country on earth will benefit from it. Lately we Jews find ourselves at the center of another world-wide experiment. For the first time ever, Terrorism has reached across the Atlantic to touch the United States. During World War II, the world was broken into two sides, and countries were either with us or against us. It was very difficult to remain neutral, and only a few countries tried. And now our President has called upon the world community once again. Terrorism is not only Israel’s problem, not only the Irish fighting the British, countries are now either with us or against us. The shadowy network of Al Quaeda exists only where the host countries allows such parasites to gain a foothold. Americans are meeting with Israeli troops to learn from Israel’s experience, to learn how to fight this new War Against Terror. The Jewish experience, for better or for worse, is once again center stage, and the entire world has taken notice. I think the most pressing question to address, is, “why?” Why have the Jews continued to suffer? Why must we always be center stage for our experience with trauma and loss? Of course, there are many history books which try to answer that question, but I have no easy answers. All that I can say is that Jews present the world with a set of morals and values which can help us understand the world around us. This is the key to understanding the current situation for Jews around the world: we refuse to see the world as black and white, right and wrong. We cannot, and have not, accepted an easy answer to the Palestinian-Israel conflict because we demand more from ourselves, and from the other side. We cannot expel the Palestinian population because that is unjust and immoral. We cannot close our borders to terrorists because we value our personal freedoms which we would necessarily lose were we to do so. Allow me to end with a small piece of text from this week’s Torah portion. This text dates back to our earliest days as a community, surrounded by cultures which supported such practices as child sacrifice, and spent much of their time at war with each other. We read, “if other damage is done, the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” This small sentence can be understood as a call for violence, but I don’t see it that way. Rather, I understand this entire chapter as a response to the lawlessness surrounding the Israelites. The text tells us, if you are wronged in this world, you deserve justice. You deserve to be able to defend yourself, and to expect a fair settlement from the one who wronged you. But there must be limits. There must be balance, there must be fairness. An eye for an eye, means only an eye, and no more. Many commentators even suggest that the ancient courts would convert all suffering into a monetary award, rather than punishing the guilty through physical loss. But in either case, the message is clear. There will be no way for us to stop the pain from happening in the world. There will be no way to stop people from hurting each other. But when it happens, our responsibility is to break the cycle of violence. It’s not easy, and it doesn’t always play well on CNN, but it is our destiny. While listening to President Bush update us Americans on the State of our precious Union, these were my two emotions: pride mixed with fear. It is a scary time to be a Jew in the world, but the forces of evil in human beings are being fought by the forces of good as well. Our tradition gives us a path to tread. A path which is complex and difficult to follow, because the problems we encounter will always be complex. But by following this path, by struggling with right and wrong, we may yet become a light unto the nations, an Or Lagoyim. |