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The Situation in Israel 3/31/21, 6:09 PM CyberTorah Torah Commentary by Rabbi David Booth Posts from www.rabbibooth.org/cybertorah. Printed on March 31, 2021 using Print My Blog THE SITUATION IN ISRAEL JULY 14, 2006 CATEGORIES: COMMENTARY How disorienting to begin a day hearing of God’s covenant of peace with the Jewish people and then to hear of bombs falling on Safed and Haifa! The story of Pinchas started last week in violent fashion. This week, by contrast and by intentional emphasis, it ends in peace. In breaking the story into two weekly readings, Torah teaches that we are inheritors of a tradition of peace. With Israelis again thrust into another violent confrontation, we cast about for the peaceful ending of our own story of violence. As lovers of peace and pursuers of peace, this moment in Israeli history is particularly discouraging. With Israeli soldiers being kidnapped along the borders, with terrorist governments in both the Palestinian Authority and as part of the Lebanese government, it’s hard to know where we should turn for peace. The newspapers say violence begets violence. The truth in the heart of Israelis: every choice begets violence. The rockets falling in Safed and Haifa have killed and wounded dozens but they are body blows on the peace process. Internally, they weaken those Israeli voices calling for continued withdrawals from Palestinian areas because those withdrawals so far have only led to more and continued violence. Those most committed to peace are discouraged, disheartened and silent in the face of such conflict. https://www.rabbibooth.org/cybertorah/?format=print&post-type=pos…age_size=medium&links=include&rendering_wait=200&print-my-blog=1 Page 1 of 1,110 3/31/21, 6:09 PM Externally, those rockets strengthen the terrorists by making them look heroic. Arab armies have never before struck Haifa. But Hezbollah – or whoever fired that rocket – did. The people cheer in the streets even as Lebanese infrastructure is destroyed. They perceive victory in a symbolic but strategically meaningless act. I see no answers. I see only problems, violence, and bloodshed. In our tradition, that is a moment to turn in prayer towards God. For “they put their trust in chariots and horses, but we trust in God.” For us, thousands of miles distant, this a moment for prayer. A Prayer for Israel at this Time May the God of our ancestors protect and sustain the land of Israel. May God offer comfort and a sheltering embrace to those held in captivity. Heal those wounded and they shall be healed. O Healer of shattered hearts offer comfort to those in mourning. At this time of violence and hopelessness, we remember that You are a Redeeming God. Even in the darkest exile of Egypt, the light of Your hope remained. Shine upon us the light hidden from the beginning of Creation and help us to see the path that leads to peace and security for Israel. Bring peace into the hearts of the Arab people so that they reject and turn away from those who would only bring about more violence. Enlighten the leaders of Israel with wisdom and insight so that they can find the answers for which we all, as disciples of Aaron who loved and pursued peace, seek. Praised are You, God, Redeemer of Israel. Amen. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi David Booth https://www.rabbibooth.org/cybertorah/?format=print&post-type=pos…age_size=medium&links=include&rendering_wait=200&print-my-blog=1 Page 2 of 1,110 3/31/21, 6:09 PM IT WAS A TIME OF BLESSINGS AND TIME OF CURSES AUGUST 17, 2006 CATEGORIES: COMMENTARY We live in the time of the blessing and the curse. The blessing is the wonderful land of Israel in which we are blessed to dwell as a gift from God. To walk its length and breadth is to encounter beauty and goodness, a true blessing in this veil of tears. The desert has truly been made to bloom, the cities come alive. Silicon Valley and the Yeshivot of Eastern Europe both send their best scholars to this place. Praised is God, the source of blessing. And yet, the curse is also read out to us from the cedars of Lebanon. Every day we read of violence and devastation. We read of a ceasefire barely holding that even the most optimistic observers see as only a pause for all sides to take stock and see how they can achieve their objectives in the future. It is hard to imagine the U.N. and the Lebanese Army disarming Hezbollah. Limited military actions continue, including Hezbollah’s thankfully failed efforts to launch missiles into Israel and Israeli action against Hezbollah positions. This is the curse, the curse of God who makes light and dark, creates harmony and also evil. Moses says to the people, “See this day I place before you blessing and curse.” The blessings are read out from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Eval. It is a commandment to read out the blessings and the curses, as Rashbam is careful to point out. We might prefer to ignore the curses, or not say them at all. No, says the Torah, you must confront the bad as well as the good. You have to read the whole of it. It is a time of blessing and a time of curse. A time of blessing when we begin to see the possibility of peace in the Middle East. Jordan is becoming a true friend of Israel. Even Saudi Arabia was horrified in the first few days by Hezbollah’s acts of war against Israel. It is a time of blessing too because peace with Israel will bring such great benefits to the Arab world. All the problems of illiteracy and poverty that plague the Middle East are a curse but a curse that Israeli development and resources could begin to address. Peace with Israel will never solve all the internal problems facing Arab society but it would be a first step. This is the world of blessing – a world on the brink of peace. It is a time of curse. When a withdrawal from Lebanon creates only rockets rained down on Haifa and https://www.rabbibooth.org/cybertorah/?format=print&post-type=pos…age_size=medium&links=include&rendering_wait=200&print-my-blog=1 Page 3 of 1,110 3/31/21, 6:09 PM Tzfat. When a withdrawal from Gaza seemingly leaves only chaos in its midst. On the brink of additional withdrawals we are met overwhelmingly by violence and terror, kidnappings and gunfire. This is the curse read out to us daily by friends, by family, by the New York Times and the Associated Press, calling out to us from their mountains of curses. This many Israelis killed. These Lebanese civilians tragically cut down. And on and on. The curses and blessings are read out on our way into the Promised Land. It is easy to give up hope when hear the curses, but easy to become hubristic when we hear only the blessings. This day we find placed before us a blessing and a curse. It is our job to find the means to choose blessing. May God soon and speedily grant peace to Israel and all her neighbors. Shabbat Shalom Rabbi David Booth https://www.rabbibooth.org/cybertorah/?format=print&post-type=pos…age_size=medium&links=include&rendering_wait=200&print-my-blog=1 Page 4 of 1,110 3/31/21, 6:09 PM THE GOD OF MY SALVATION AUGUST 24, 2006 CATEGORIES: COMMENTARY To be Jewish means to wrestle with God. Israel is the one who wrestles with God and prevails because it is through the willingness to struggle that we discover our true selves. Jacob wrestles with this strange man or angel and comes away marked and changed. Had he failed to wrestle, however, he would have faded out of history. We would never have known the story of Jacob. For 2000 years Jews lived outside of history. The moral dilemmas associated with administering a state were the challenges of other nations. We dwelt among them and sometimes even became of them, but we left the problems of government, of war, of kings, to those in whose midst we dwelt. It is this exit from history that prompted Rav Kook, the first chief Rabbi of Israel, to say, “Divine Providence has kept Israel out of history because sovereignty required wars to uphold that sovereignty. Wars require slaying the righteous along with the wicked. Now that the League of Nations has made warfare obsolete, the time has arrived for a redeemed Israel.” Leaving aside Rav Kook’s mistaken optimism about the League of Nations, he demonstrates how political redemption means a return to the problems of history. The Hebrew word Geulah, redemption, means to be lifted away from a place of persecution and poverty and brought out to freedom. It is in this sense that God redeemed the Jewish people from Egypt. This same meaning underpins the Rabbinic prayer for God’s geulah that we have recited over 2000 years. What Rav Kook forgot about, however, is the Hebrew word yishuah, meaning salvation. David prays to God for yishuah while living in a free Israel. He has enemies and problems – he must struggle with the challenges of a dangerous and frightening world. At the same time he is in control of his own destiny. As Soloveitchik would say, he has the ability to speak. We have finally, after 2000 years, gained the ability to speak. We are a redeemed people back again in history, struggling with the challenges of the world.
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