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Shalom: Peace, Not Just Peace of Mind Parashat Ki Tetze Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am 9.6.14 ~ 11 Elul 5774

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Shalom: Peace, Not Just Peace of Mind Parashat Ki Tetze Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am 9.6.14 ~ 11 Elul 5774 Shalom: Peace, Not Just Peace of Mind Parashat Ki Tetze Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am 9.6.14 ~ 11 Elul 5774 This week I spent a day in Washington with thought-leaders, rabbis and policy analysts. We were speaking about Israel, America’s relationship with the Jewish state and the current deeply troubling state of affairs in the Middle East. The most surprising and powerful presentation of the day was that of Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder and spiritual leader of Hamas. Given the events of this summer, it was particularly poignant to hear the heartfelt and courageous words of this young author and former Israeli asset (as he sat on the dais across from his Shin Bet handler). To even begin to conceive of such heroism, we almost have to transport ourselves into a different time – say Germany of the 1940s, when precious few righteous individuals resisted and acted against the scourge of Nazism. We might visit Rwanda or Cambodia, Darfur or America’s antebellum south. There are far too many examples in human history of pervasive, systematic violence and too few stories of those who made the hardest choices to turn against their fathers, brothers and their communities and attempt to salvage their dignity and humanity. Or perhaps we should roll the Torah back from its current location near the end, to a story near the very beginning whose hero, a simple man named Noah, is tzadik tamim haya b’dorotav, “a righteous man, blameless in his generation” (Gen. 6:9). I would argue it’s virtually impossible for us, most or all of us in this room, to know what it is like to live among the truly malevolent and depraved – a society so bad God sees no recourse but to erase it and start over. It’s nearly unimaginable to us how one brave soul could discover the infinite value of human life despite constant exposure to those who devalue it so. In an open letter to his father and family Mosab writes, “I could have been a hero and made my people proud of me…. I know you see me as a traitor; please understand it was not you I chose to betray but your understanding of what it means to be a hero.” Noah was a hero because he transcended the corruption and chaos. And what is the Torah’s word used to describe the state of humanity in Noah’s day? Hamas. How little things have changed. But of course it’s not just Hamas. Though that organization, at least at the moment, is largely isolated and severely weakened, the Islamic fundamentalism undergirding Hamas’ deadly aims is metastatic in the Muslim world. Hezbollah. Islamic Jihad. The Muslim Brotherhood. Boko Haram. And of course ISIS or ISIL. There are so many names for the same evil. James Foley. Now Steven Sotloff, each murdered in the most grotesquely awful way. So much energy, we now learn, expended to keep Sotloff’s Jewishness secret in the desperate hope that it might buy him time or give his captors less incentive to do their worst. So I want to begin this morning by sharing a provocative claim that Mosab Hassan Yousef made during his remarks on Wednesday. It was a claim that, frankly, upset me and challenged my liberal sensibilities. Mosab was asked why Islam, a religion of peace, has been degraded by so many extremists who kill indiscriminately in its name. Mosab’s response was surprising, to say the least. “Islam is not a religion of peace,” he said. “Mohammed was a man of the sword. Islam was founded in violence.” I’ve been thinking about that statement, not because I feel in any way qualified to determine whether he’s right. Certainly there are plenty who claim that Islam, indeed, is a religion of peace… that the radicalization of so many Muslims is an affront to the Koran and Sharia Law. I’m on the board of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, an organization that has just pivoted to include Islam in its charter and hired its first Muslim scholar. While I would very 1 much like to believe Mosab is wrong, I leave it to others much more qualified than I to answer that question. Instead, let’s consider a few related questions: what does it mean to be a religion of peace? Is Judaism a religion of peace? And what is peace? The word Shalom occurs 237 times in Tanakh. Clearly it’s an important concept, but in our parasha we see the word only once. Lo tidrosh sh’lomam v’tovatam kol yamekha l’olam, With regard to the Ammonites and Moabites, “you shall never concern yourself with their welfare (sh’lomam) or benefit as long as you live” (Deu. 23:7). Why not? The Torah gives two reasons. The Ammonites’ sin was to deny us food and water after we left Egypt, and the Moabites hired Bilaam ben Beor to curse us. But, honestly, so what? Attacking Jews is an ancient pastime. Why were these two nations’ sins worse than the Edomites who were also a sworn enemy of Israel or the Egyptians who enslaved us for hundreds of years? What about the Hivites and Perezites and Jebusites, Hittites and various other ites? Nachmanides suggests their unique sin was that their offenses were done in spite, entirely dismissive of the hesed done for them. What was this kindness? Abraham saved Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot went on to have two daughters with whom he incestuously fathered two sons. One was named Moav, father of the Moabites and the other Ben- Ammi whom the Torah (Gen. 19:36-38) tells us is the Ammonite progenitor. Kindness received and scorned. Think about how terrible we feel when we’re mocked or attacked by someone we’ve tried to help? Hell hath no fury like most people scorned. I think of the food, medicine and humanitarian aid sent to Gaza by Israel and the injured Gazans treated by Israeli doctors, even in the midst of the conflict. And I think of the construction materials sent by Israel to build hospitals, schools and homes which were repurposed for tunnels to better kidnap or murder more Israelis. Hamas’ strategy involves destroying lives: Jewish lives, Arab lives, indiscriminately and with impunity. Shalom must be earned by those who recognize certain fundamental values. Otherwise it’s meaningless. Otherwise it’s just a word. Are we a religion of peace? If peace means simply the absence of war, then no. Pacifism, while perhaps a messianic urge, is not a Jewish value. Our parasha begins Ki tetze l’milchama al oy’vekha.., “When you go out to war against your enemies…” (Deu. 21:10). The world must be responded to as it is, not as we wish it to be. And to respond we must first attempt to understand and have the humility to admit when we don’t. None of us lives in Mesopotamia of Noah’s time or Berlin of my grandfather’s time or Israel today. The question isn’t whether to fight, but how to fight! Not whether to make peace. And not, as is so often incorrectly stated ‘the cost of making peace.’ No, at issue is the very nature of peace. To the question “how we fight,” the parasha offers multiple mitzvot having to do with conflict, punishment and the sanctity of life. “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger” (24:14). Parents shall not be put to death for the children [nor the opposite]. A person shall be put to death only for his own crime” (24:16). “When there is a dispute between men and they go to law, and a decision is rendered... He may be given up to forty lashes, but not more, lest being flogged further to excess, your brother be degraded before your eyes” (24:1,3). The Shin Bet has confirmed that none of the twenty-seven, “Israeli collaborators” was an Israeli asset. Do you think that mattered to Hamas? If there are those (and I’m sure there are many) who mourned the lack of a fair trial as they witnessed those bodies dragged through the streets of Gaza city, surely they could not mourn publicly. What about the forty-three Fijian UN observers who have been taken hostage by Al Qaeda rebels in Syria? Their crime? Nothing. Just being there. How we fight matters. 2 More than this, our parasha tells us we are responsible for preventing violence, avoiding loss of innocent life. V’asita ma’akeh l’gagekha, “make a parapet for your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone should fall from it” (22:8). But there are times when violence is called for, and the Torah is less progressive than the state of Maryland on the death penalty. The rabbis would come later to severely limit capital punishment. And yet, even in Torah when the ultimate punishment is exacted, the dignity of the criminal must be respected. We read: “You must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury him the same day.” Even convicted murderers may not have their remains desecrated. Beheadings and public maimings, the verse reads: kil’lat Elohim, are an affront to God (22:23). Once the world was poisoned by “hamas.” Now an organization of the same name defiles its own land with the blood of its own people.
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