Michael Kress: August 2006 Archives

A few weeks ago, we read in our weekly Torah reading the command to do what is right and good. The Hebrew word is yashar, which literally means "straight."

The verse is understood as the command to go beyond the letter of the law. In other words, even though one might be justified in doing something, one might be technically in the right in doing something, it is still sometimes a mitzvah to refrain from doing it in order to go above and beyond what is normally expected in the world and thereby do what is more ethically correct.

Judaism has always been a religion that focuses on, teaches, ritualizes the ability to tell the differences between things: the difference between Shabbat and the rest of the week; the difference between kosher and non-kosher food; the difference between shatnes (linen and wool mixtures) and other fabrics. The ability to distinguish differences is the beginning of discernment, and discernment is an essential component of wisdom.

I am guessing educators know this because I have seen the games of find the differences most often in educational settings. As a child, one of the only consolations for visiting the dentist’s office was the chance to look at Highlights magazine. My favorite section was comparing two pictures to find the differences between the two.

I was reminded of these two tableaus, and the importance of being able to see differences, as I watched the news of the war between Hezbollah and Israel the other night. There is really very little balance in the news reports. Large chunks of time are spent on Lebanese civilian deaths and destruction and very little on the death, destruction, and dislocation on the Israeli side.

So for every news segment, I thought of the missing images: The poor, the children, the elderly in Haifa, Kiryat Shmona, Tzefat, Afula, Israeli Jews and also Israeli Arabs, people who huddle in extremely hot bomb shelters day in and day out in fear for their lives from Hezbollah rockets. Israeli families crying, mourning the loss of loved ones from the rocket barrages, a hundred a day. The streets of normally bustling Haifa ghostly quiet, deserted. Apartment after apartment destroyed.

And here are some of the differences I found:

• Hezbollah makes an effort to target innocent Israeli civilians. Israel makes an effort to target Hezbollah rocket locations.
  

• Unprovoked, Hezbollah crossed their border to attack Israeli cities in aggressive actions of rocket attacks and the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, who were in Israel at the time. Israel is crossing its border to defend itself and its citizens from attack.
  

• When Hezbollah kills Israeli civilians, its fighters cheer and celebrate. When Israelis kill Lebanese civilians, they mourn and apologize.
  

• Hezbollah used Lebanese civilians as cover for their terrorism. Israel asks civilians to leave so they will not be hurt.
  

• Hezbollah’s fighters are a paramilitary organization that is holding all of Lebanon hostage. Israel’s fighters are its army, who reports to the democratically elected leaders of its nation’s government.
  

• Hezbollah wants to destroy another sovereign nation, Israel. Israel wants to live in peace with its neighbors.
  

These are some of the differences I found. Perhaps you can find more.

Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman

Following the mourning of Tisha b’Av (commemorating the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the Second Temple in 70 CE), Jews traditionally read selections from prophets (Haftorot) that draw on images of comfort: the sense that God has not abandoned them, that children will some day again be able to sing and dance in the streets of the cities of Zion in safety and security.

These readings were chosen for these weeks following Tisha b’Av by rabbis living years, if not decades, after the Destruction. They have given hope to thousands of generations of Jews who have faced their own communal traumas, as one enemy after another has risen against us to destroy us.

What is the consolation this year? That we are still here? That Israel is strong enough to defend its citizens? Thank God, otherwise Hezbollah would have overrun Israel long ago and slaughtered or run out every Jew, as their Iranian puppet master has already announced he wants to do.

But military strength, while necessary, may not be sufficient. Israelis were hoping this would be a clean war, soldiers fighting each other, not another ambiguous one where Israeli soldiers wind up hurting civilians they were not targeting.

Is the consolation in the hope that the world will finally see that Israel is in the right? That memory is hard to maintain in the face of relentless and one-sided news coverage of Lebanese civilian suffering?

We Jews know how to mourn. I mourn not only the lives of Israelis lost, but also the terrible loss of life and livelihood for the Lebanese people, who were just beginning to find their way back to normalcy, a normalcy the Hezbollah, not Israel, stole from them. As a Lebanese-American businessman recently was quoted as saying in The New York Times, Lebanon cannot become another Hong Kong if it continues to harbor terrorists.

What is the consolation? Is it Israeli resoluteness, their ability to survive hardship by pulling together, helping each other, keeping spirits up? Is it the mobilization of the American Jewish community to help Israel at this time, by sending missions, by sending funds? (Donations can be sent to your local Jewish Federation.)

Or is the consolation to be found in our refusal to give up hope that maybe this time, after this war, our enemies will be willing to make the peace that is all we ever really wanted?

Posted By Rabbi Susan Grossman