Real Peace
Daphna Mor and the musicians of East of the River will open our Kumah Festival on May 10th.
Dear friends,
When the Holy Blessed One came to create Adam the first human, the ministering angels divided into various factions. Some of them were saying: ‘Let him not be created,’ and some of them were saying: ‘Let him be created.’ This is what is referenced in the Psalms when it is written: “Kindness and truth met; righteousness and peace touched” (Psalms 85:11). Kindness said: ‘Let him be created, as he performs acts of kindness.’ Truth said: ‘Let him not be created, as he is all full of lies.’ Righteousness said: ‘Let him be created, as he performs acts of righteousness.’ Peace said: ‘Let him not be created, as he is all full of discord.’ What did the Holy Blessed One do? He took Truth and cast it down to earth, as is written: “You cast truth down to the earth.” (Daniel 8:12). The ministering angels said before the Holy Blessed One: ‘Master of the universe, what are you doing?! Let Truth rise up from the earth!’ As is written: “Truth will spring from the earth” (Psalms 85:12).
While the ministering angels were busy arguing with one another the Holy blessed One created Adam. He said to them: ‘Why are you deliberating? Adam has already been created.’
So much of the essence of the events of the last week are captured in this ancient midrash. Like the angels, we are passionately arguing over humanity, over Israel, while reality keeps flowing. From our American island we yell and scream, while in Gaza the madness is not theoretical. Hirsh cries out to us waving his mutilated arm. The Israeli Minister of Finance demands “total annihilation,” while the tanks line up on the border, and the two men leading this rabid tango continue to display their sick selfishness.
Last week I had a moment of pride, when Rabbi Abby joined other Jews, American and Israeli to try to deliver food to Gaza. They were stopped a couple kilometers from the border crossing, but for a moment the hollow words from the Seder: “Let all who are hungry come and eat,” were given some depth when Abby and the other Rabbis for Ceasefire spoke about the hunger across that border.
The truth is I’m hungry. Hungry for quiet, for humility, for a world that doesn’t constantly provoke the earth to spew us out. Nachmanides said that the difference between the land of Israel and anywhere else is that unlike other places, Israel vomits away the people who defile it through moral abominations. I’m not sure that’s only true of Israel.
Monday is Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day on which we recall when the Jews paid the price for the moral abomination called Europe. We are still recovering from that. Even 79 years after that war ended there are still close to one million less Jews in the world than there were in 1939. Each antisemitic chant pushes us further away from recovery. And each Palestinian child who dies too.
This week’s Haftarah is one of the clearest ethical rebukes of a nation, in a bible full of them. Speaking to Jerusalem, “the city of blood,” the prophet Ezekiel enumerates the moral, social and religious abominations of the Jews of the city – which he already knows will lead to the land spewing them out.
הִנֵּה֙ נְשִׂיאֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אִ֥ישׁ לִזְרֹע֖וֹ הָ֣יוּ בָ֑ךְ לְמַ֖עַן שְׁפׇךְ־דָּֽם׃
Every one of the leaders of Israel in your midst uses their strength for the shedding of blood.
The punishment is coming, says the prophet, the circle is coming around, and he urges the people to consider their frailty:
הֲיַעֲמֹ֤ד לִבֵּךְ֙ אִם־תֶּחֱזַ֣קְנָה יָדַ֔יִךְ לַיָּמִ֕ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י עֹשֶׂ֣ה אוֹתָ֑ךְ אֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה דִּבַּ֥רְתִּי וְעָשִֽׂיתִי׃
Will your heart be able to stand it? Will your hands still hold any strength in the days when I deal with you? Unlike you, I, YHVH, am not all talk.
Our fate, suggests the prophet is not sealed. Goodness could appear in a flash; as quick as regret, as sudden as a realization; “a flash of lightning,” as Nietzsche put it:
"Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best armed, out of a height of feeling – that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind."
When our ancestors were kicked out of Spain they found refuge in Turkey. While their leaders debated how to stay alive - like the angels in the Midrash - the musicians offered peace of mind through the new music they encountered there. They were alive, they were singing, they were at peace. As we prepare to open our Kumah Festival next Friday with that very music, let the memory of the six million remind us who we are: a nation of wandering improvisors, whose weapon and saving grace has always been our imaginative mind. May we return to it and find a real peace.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha