On Thursday night, April 17, three masked men torched the
entrance to the Abu Bakr al Sadik Mosque in Um Al-Fahmm in northern Israel.
They wrote “Arabs out” with spray paint on an exterior wall before setting fire
to the entrance and then fleeing like the cowards they are. Israeli police have
expressed confidence that they will catch the people responsible, and I hope
they do. The previous Tuesday the Deir Rafat Catholic monastery in Bet Shemesh
was discovered to have been vandalized with spray-painted epithets including: “America is Nazi Germany,” “Price Tag — Peace
Agreement,” “Jesus is a monkey,” and “Mary is a cow.” The tires of four cars
were also slashed.
The
reference to “price tags” identifies these acts of vandalism with a strategy of
the extremists in the settler movement to exact revenge against Arabs who
attack Jews, and the Israeli government for freezing settlements. Viewed
through a broader political lens, the attacks were a response to U.S. Secretary
of State John Kerry’s visit earlier in the week; this fringe group opposes
efforts to make peace, believing no sincere peace agreement is possible. Sadly,
these are not isolated incidents; they are merely the most recent. In the past,
extremists have targeted even Israeli military bases.
The Latin
Patriarch Fouad Twal succinctly encapsulated the attack on the monastery: "This is bad for the state of
Israel, it is bad for us, it is bad for everybody. In this Holy Land we do not
need these actions. Especially these actions against a monastery where we have
sisters just praying for peace. They are not involved in any politics, so this
really is a bad sign and we regret it very much.”
Indeed, all people
of good will regret such incidents, but even more deplore them and revile those
who engage in them. Here in
America, we would rightly call these hate crimes: such behavior is morally
reprehensible and entirely outside the scope of what Torah requires of us as
Jews. This week’s Torah portion, Kedoshim,
begins:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the whole
Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your
God, am holy. (Leviticus 19:1-2)
Attacking
mosques and monasteries is not what people commanded to be holy do. It is what
thugs do. Profuse expressions of self-righteous religiosity do not make one
holy. Devout adherence to strict rules of ritual observance does not make one
holy. Hatred of those who are “other” does not make one holy.
Torah tells
us what makes us holy and how to fashion a holy life:
You shall each revere his mother and his father,
and keep My Sabbaths: I the Lord am your God. Do not turn to idols or make
molten gods for yourselves: I the Lord am your God… When you reap the harvest
of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or
gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or
gather the fallen fruits of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor
and the stranger: I the Lord am your God. You shall not steal; you shall not
deal deceitfully or falsely with one another… You shall not defraud your
fellow. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of the laborer shall not remain
with you until morning. You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling
block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am the Lord. You shall not
render an unfair decision; do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich;
judge your kinsman fairly. Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not
profit by the blood of your fellow: I am the Lord… (Leviticus 19:3-4, 9-16)
These verses
come from chapter 19 of Leviticus. Scholars have dubbed the nineteenth chapter
of Leviticus “The Holiness Code.” You may have noticed that the first three commandments
that frame the chapter are (1) revering one’s parents; (2) keeping shabbat; and
(3) not engaging in idolatry. This frame establishes a profound religious
worldview: our goal is to establish a society based on respect for family,
appreciation of God’s creation, and clear values and priorities that steer us
away from the myriad idolatries that blind us to genuine holiness.
You may also
have noticed that virtually all the rest of chapter 19 points to human
relations: how to treat others with respect and compassion—doing so is a
reflection of how we regard God. Bottom line: loving God requires that we treat
other human beings with respect and recognize the divine spark within them.
That’s easy when they are our friends and neighbors and treat us decently.
There is no reason to think that the congregants of the mosque or residents of
the monastery do otherwise, but even if they do not, this is not an excuse to
engage in the type of “price tag” behavior both deplorable incidents exemplify.
Torah bids us—indeed commands us—to reach out and build bridges to others
through honesty, decency, and compassion—not to set explosives to blow any
potential relational bridges sky high because we are engaged in our own
political and religious idolatries, as the extremist settlers are.
I am not
including pictures of the torched entrance to the mosque or the graffiti on the
monastery in this blog post because they don’t deserve additional publicity.
They are repugnant. Rather I’m including other pictures and examples of
bridge-builders:
- Amal Elsana Alh'jooj [Amal-Elsana-Alh'jooj.jpg ],
is a Bedouin and Israeli citizen who
founded the Arab Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation. Among her many successes, she started a joint Israeli-Arab school in Beer Sheva called Hagar in 2006. Hagar describes itself as “a spring-board for social change.”
Amal Elsana Alh'jooj
- In northern Israel, the Galil Jewish-Arab School is part of the Hand in Hand network of bilingual schools sponsored by the Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel.
 |
| Galil School |
- Hands of Peace (http://www.handsofpeace.org/) is an interfaith organization founded by Gretchen Grad (bond trader turned peacemaker) that seeks to develop leadership and peacemaking skills among Israeli, Palestinian, and American teens by bringing them together to get to know one another, talk openly and sincerely together, and befriend one another. (Take a look at the video here.)
Hand in Hand teachers - Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam (“Oasis of Peace” in both Hebrew and Arabic) is a Jewish-Muslim village located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that was formed in 1970 on land donated by the Catholic Church.
Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam ("Oasis of Peace") School - There is an Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization (http://www.ipso-jerusalem.org/), numerous Arab-Israeli dialogues in Israel as well as Jewish-Muslim dialogue groups throughout the United States, and even a group called Comedy for Peace.
I haven’t
even begun to scratch the surface. There are many more groups and programs that
deserve mention. You can find many of them listed here.
All are bridge-builders. The work hasn’t always been easy. But is there really
any other ethical path? Torah tell us, You
shall love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18) not because it is
easy, but precisely because it is so difficult yet so necessary.
In parshat Kedoshim we are told that God
forbids us from giving our children to Molech. Who or what is Molech, and what
is this prohibition about? I Kings 11:7 knows Molech to be an Ammonite deity to
which people sacrificed children, a practice King Josiah abolished. It is
likely that “Molech” is an amalgam of the consonants mem-lamed-kaf (meaning “rule” or “sovereign”) and the vowels of the
word boshet (meaning “shame”). The
Torah commentary Etz Hayim explains:
“Molech represents the demonic, destructive face of religion, the cult of death
and human sacrifice… It is the polar opposite of everything the Holiness Code
stands for.” (p. 701) Engaging in ideologies of hatred and vengeance—elevating
them so they rule one’s life and dictate one’s behavior, is shameful—deeply
shameful. Torah tells us that one who gives his offspring to Molech defiles
God’s sanctuary and profanes God’s holy name (Leviticus 20:3).
It is easy
enough to catalogue the episodes of abuse and violence perpetrated against
Israel and her citizens. And without any doubt, Israel has the right and sacred
responsibility to defend and protect her citizens. But acts of gratuitous
hatred, violence, and vandalism are offerings to Molech. They are shameful and
unworthy of anyone calling himself or herself a Jew.
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
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