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Parashat Bo

Student Rabbi Sari Laufer

 

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
It's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Thus spoke Bob Dylan, the great American folk poet, in a powerful song about the tragedy of war throughout the ages. He chronicles American history from the colonization of America through the Cold War. His song, in a haunting rhyme, speaks of the death and destruction and pain of war.

These words—death and destruction and pain—are unfortunately all too apt for our Torah reading this week.

During our Passover seders, we blithely recount the ten plagues as part of a singsong chant, but our Torah’s descriptions are not so simple. The commentaries on the Torah make the pain of these plagues ever clearer. These were not nice times— not for the Egyptians, for sure, but not for the Israelites either. They were times of death and destruction and pain and fear. 

Perhaps the scariest of all was the final night of the plagues. The night we celebrate with the word and ritual of Passover. The night the houses of the Israelites were “passed over” by the angel of death. The night that the Angel of Death slew the first born Egyptian sons. However great the Egyptians sins may have been, this punishment is nonetheless painful. It is the loss of a precious, perhaps an only, child. It is death and destruction and pain magnified by a thousand.

Yet, tonight, we stand on the brink of war. And what is war, if not death and destruction and pain?

Reading any Western media, it is clear who the characters are in the Gulf War scenario. We are the innocent Israelites, oppressed by the cruelty of terrorism. Saddam Hussein and his regime, on the other hand, are Pharaoh and the evil Egyptians. In our modern world, however, we are clearly not waiting for any sign from G-d, or any Divine punishments. It is not the Ten Plagues that will be unleashed. It is the power and might of the U.S. Army.

Jewish tradition, in a nutshell, speaks of two specific kinds of war. The great scholar Maimonides explained the difference between a milchemet mitzvah—a war of obligation, and milchemet reshut—a war of permission. The first case, the war of obligation, is an interesting case to study at this time. According to Maimonides, this is what qualifies as a war of obligation:

 

                        Against the seven people, and the war against

Amalek, and helping Israel from the hand of a

foe that comes upon them.

Using this definition, it seems, one could argue that in fact a war against Iraq, or a war against terrorism, fits this definition to a T. If a war to help Israel from the hand of a foe that comes upon them is a war of obligation, the rhetoric surrounding the impending war in Iraq supports this reasoning.

The American government clings to their belief that a “regime change” will entirely alter the political climate of the Middle East. There is, I suppose, strength to that argument. And if that argument is true, perhaps, as an ally of Israel and an enemy of terror, the United States is truly obligated to stand up and fight against Iraq.



Maimonides continues, saying that any other war is a milchemet reshut, or a war of permission. In Maimonides time, he defined this as a war that is “fought against all other peoples in order to expand the border of Israel and to increase its size and fame.” Our impending war against Iraq does not fit this definition, but if you do not believe that we are obligated to war against Iraq, it seems logical that it is, in fact, the other kind—a war of permission.

And most scholars agree that this permission must come from the people. As the people, it is crunch time. We must think, very hard, about whether or not we want to give permission for a war.

Do we feel this is a just war, a war to which we are obligated in the name of a greater global good? Or do we think there are other, less honorable reasons for this war? American law is not governed by the Torah, so we cannot hold our lawmakers accountable to Jewish tradition. 

But we elect our officials. They are public servants, and they are elected to represent the views we want to represent. We can give them permission to do what we want by speaking out, or they can make their own choices when we stay silent.

During the night of the original Passover, as the Angel of Death slew the Egyptian first-born, the Israelites were instructed by Moses to stay within their homes. He said to them:

 

                        Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood

that is in the basin, and apply some of the

blood that is in the basin to the lintel and to

the two doorposts. None of you shall go outside

the door of his house until morning. For when

Adonai goes through to smite the Egyptians,

Adonai will see the blood on the lintel and the

two doorposts, and Adonai will pass over the

door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite

your home.

Rashi, in his commentary on this verse, takes note of the instruction to remain within the home once the blood has been painted. He comments that this instruction teaches that “once the destroyer—death—would be let loose, there would be no distinction between the righteous and wicked.”

There is a powerful lesson here for us, on the brink of war. As we sit in our homes, as the government debates in the halls of Congress, even as our soldiers train on U.S. bases here in the United States, we are within the doors of our house. Here, we can stand up as the righteous.

But, as Rashi cautions, once we step outside, there is no longer a clear delineation between us and them. In a war, death knows no distinction between the righteous and wicked. And while we may see ourselves in a war of obligation—fighting for a righteous cause, the outcomes of war will not escape us. Even if we see this as the most righteous of battles, death knows no borders.

It is, surely, a scary time. While we focus our attention on Iraq, North Korea is piling its nuclear arsenal. Battles continue to rage in Afghanistan, bitter dispute is still seething in the Kashmir region. Once again, we grieved with our brothers and sisters in Israel as two suicide bombers turned central Tel Aviv into a war zone. We are constantly bombarded with images of conflict; our government continues to talk the talk of war. American flags wave madly, proof to the world that we are strong and we are powerful, and we will not be slaves to terror.

Part of our righteous indignation comes from the belief that as Americans, we truly do have God on our side. Our rhetoric speaks this belief over and over again. And perhaps it is true. Perhaps this is truly a war of obligation, and like the Israelites against the Egyptians, we will prevail with God’s help. But as our country prepares for war, it is also OUR obligation to know where we stand. It is our obligation, if we do not support this war, to speak out, to let our voices be heard loud and clear. And if we do support this war, if we do believe that God is on our side, we must say that loud and clear. We must send our support to the men and women overseas, fighting this war for us. It is our obligation now, to ask questions of ourselves and of our country. We should know where we stand.

Dylan’s song ends with this verse, which rings too true at this moment. He sings:



But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

Now is the time to ask questions.