History and Truth in Jacob’s Last Words to Simeon and Levi (Gen. 49:5–7)

The following words are dedicated to the memory of my mother, Dr. Hannah French, who passed away 43 years ago in the Hebrew month of Kislev.

My mother was deeply committed to the value of truth. Even truths that were painful or searing. Even memories that she would have preferred to obliterate. Such were the memories that arose before Jacob’s eyes as he lay dying. He recalled the death of his beloved Rachel and her burial by the wayside, instead of in her deserved place by his side in the cave of the patriarchs and matriarchs in Hebron. He recalled the deed that led to the family being on the road when Rachel was struck by birth pangs: the massacre perpetrated by his sons on the people of Shechem. And he remembered the loss of Joseph, even as he delighted in having the unforeseen opportunity to bless Joseph’s sons before he died.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about truth, a value that seems slipperier than ever in this age of free information – so free that it tends to get away. I’ve witnessed the denial and distortion of things that seemed to be unvarnished fact, as though they were matters of opinion rather than of information or science.

In light of these reflections, I read a book by the French historian and intellectual Pierre Vidal-Naquet on the subject of Holocaust denial. Vidal-Naquet examines the methods used by various “academic” Holocaust deniers in France, Germany and the U.S. to produce scientific “proofs” for their arguments that the stories of mass murder in Auschwitz couldn’t possibly be true. For example – that the Nazis didn’t have the physical means to operate the gas chambers. Or that their deeds simply fly in the face of common sense or the way history normally plays out. And all this even after the Nazis’ deeds had been interrogated and researched in fine detail, at the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial, and in many scholarly studies, and even though every Jew knows from his own personal experience, from the loss of near and dear ones, that these things are as true as the sun and the moon hanging in the heavens.

Vidal-Naquet thinks as well about the political uses made of memory and of its denial by those he calls “assassins of memory.” For example, by diminishing the Nazi crimes – not completely denying them, but restricting them to the dimensions of “war crimes” as opposed to “genocide” – they can be compared with the types of war crimes perpetrated in most wars, enabling the perpetrators of those crimes to be trumpeted as Nazis. Vidal-Naquet was writing in the 1980s, in the context of the French war in Algeria and its attendant crimes, but I believe one can easily see the relevance of his discussion to recent times, including our own accusations against others and theirs against us.

Vidal-Naquet, who was at pains to negate the arguments of the deniers by pointing to their obviously false underpinnings (even as he debated with himself the usefulness of creating a “school” of Holocaust-affirmers that might actually lend credence to the opposing “school” of Holocaust-deniers), offers no firm answers to the question of how the phenomenon of denial of the historic truth can be overcome. On the contrary; on the basis of his own scholarship, he shows how similar cover-ups have happened throughout history. Nevertheless, one may learn from his discussion that there is no other way to deal with this issue than to keep reiterating those true historical memories, painful as they may be.

I see an example of this in Jacob’s blessings to his sons at the end of his life. Jacob recalls, with no effort to prettify them, the worst deeds of his sons – Reuven, who slept with his father’s concubine, and especially Simeon and Levi, who perpetrated the massacre in Shechem and threw their brother Joseph into the pit. These deeds disqualified the three older sons from the leadership, which would pass to the tribe of Judah. Jacob’s precise wording in this regard bears examination.

On the one hand, Jacob emphasizes the damage that can arise from “brotherhood” – the very unity that we so crave. “Simeon and Levi are a pair!” Unity can lead in more than one direction. When the brothers unite as twelve tribes under the leadership of Judah, glorious as a lion, who spoke the truth to Joseph at the risk of his own life, that unity leads to victory, security and prosperity. But when their unity is along the lines of the brotherhood of Simeon and Levi, it leads them to commit atrocities that everyone would rather forget. Perhaps one could have passed these off as the deeds of a small minority. But Jacob doesn’t do that. He mentions them in his final words of blessing to the children of Israel: Let them remember that the deeds of a few can stain the many, even those who bear the name of Israel.

On the other hand, as Rashi points out, “Even in this hour of reproof, he cursed only their anger.” Jacob does not forever accurse his sons Simeon and Levi. On the contrary: Their descendants would produce Israel’s great spiritual leaders and teachers – Moses, the tribe of Levi, the priests and the educators – as Jacob hints in his final words to them: “I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel.” Jacob curses not them, but their rage and zealotry: “Cursed be their anger so fierce, and their wrath so relentless.” As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch remarks in his commentary: “This is of the utmost importance, that here, as the cornerstone for the people of Israel was being laid, a curse was pronounced upon any outburst that blemished morality or justice, even if it was done for the common good.”

I conclude from this discussion that there is nothing to be gained from the denial of reprehensible deeds, or from the effort to distort or prettify them, or from arguing that they are but the deeds of “others” or of an “extremist minority.” They are part of our history, and our duty is to learn from them. At the same time, there’s no point to miring ourselves in accusations and blaming. Zeal should be channeled into spirituality – and the leadership should be in the hands of those who can lead the people with true glory and sincerity.

That is the spiritual testament of Jacob to the people of Israel. 

On this Day of Remembrance, I would like to say thank you to those who have fought for this country, those who have lived for it and those who have died for it.

Because I love this country and its people.

Love is hard to explain or justify. If I say I love this country, it's not because I think everything about it is good.

When the US (where I grew up) was born, its society was based partly on slave labor and upon the expropriation of the Native Americans. Slavery was so deeply ingrained that those who tried to get it outlawed at the great Constitutional Convention were defeated. It took almost another century and a terrible civil war to do away with slavery, and even now the damage and injustice to Native Americans and African Americans are not spent.

Australia (where my spouse grew up) was founded upon the expropriation and near-extermination of the Native Australians.

The olam she kulo tov -- the perfect world -- does not exist anywhere on earth. But love does exist. It's even commanded and demanded by the Holy One.

A strong and independent Israel, a place where Hebrew culture can flower -- these things are not nothing. And this reality is so very fragile, and it has grown out of so many people's love.

If we need to learn to share this country; if we have a lot to fix -- there's also a lot to appreciate, a lot to live up to. We remember; we yearn; we love.

The Image of God, between Nahalin and Bat Ayin

On Friday, on the eve of the Holy Sabbath and the Muslim festival, I saw the image of God defaced.

The night before, a taxi carrying a family from the Palestinian village of Nahalin -- mother, father, and young children -- was firebombed just below the Jewish settlement of Bat Ayin, not far from Jerusalem, a few kilometers from the city of Efrat in Gush Etzion. It's not new that Palestinians are the targets of attacks by Jewish extremists, in many places in the territories and in that particular spot, where a tree-covered hillside overlooking the road makes for easy rock or firebomb-throws and quick getaways. This time, however, the attack was more than usually successful. Of the six people who emerged from the flaming vehicle, five were hospitalized with burns all over their bodies.

On the initiative of Gadi Gevaryahu and the Tag Meir Forum that he founded, a small group of us, including several settlers who live in the area, turned out to pay our respects at the site of the firebombing and then to visit some of the injured family members at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Tag Meir translates roughly as "Tag of Radiance," a play on what the extremist settlers refer to as their Tag Mehir / "Price-Tag" activities -- burning mosques, destroying tress and crops, or attacking Palestinians and IDF installations -- in response to perceived threats or acts of violence.

In the hospital, we found our way to the mother's room and were welcomed by her father, standing by her bedside. She is a young woman, younger than my daughter, though her children are older than my grandson. She was "moderately" injured. Her face is covered in burns, one eye half-closed, her hands swathed in bandages. She speaks no Hebrew; her father, a little. One might have expected hostility, but he was clearly moved by our visit. We left chocolates, flowers, and good wishes for the oncoming Eid, the Muslim festival at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Her brother-in-law, at the other end of the same ward, pulled a sheet over his face and refused to see us. Perhaps because he was sleeping. Perhaps because he didn't want to speak to Israelis.

From there we went to see her child, far away in the pediatric wing of the hospital. The child himself -- a four-year-old boy, his burnt face a reflection of his mother's -- was sedated and unaware of our visit, but the uncle standing near welcomed us warmly, as did the hospital staff. We left toys and chocolates; the flowers, for which there was no room in this pediatric intensive care unit, became a gift to the nurses.

On the way home, we learned that three Palestinians teenagers had been beaten up -- one within an inch of his life -- by a mob of Jewish teenagers in the heart of downtown Jerusalem the night before.

The next day, in the synagogue, I heard the following verses chanted from the Torah:

And you shall tear down their altars, smash their monuments, burn their asherim with fire, cut down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name from that place.
You shall not do so to the Lord, your God.
(Deuteronomy 12:3-4)

Rashi, in his comment on verse 4, quotes the following midrash: "Rabbi Ishmael said: Would it enter your mind that the Israelites would tear down the altars [of God]? Rather, [the meaning of“You shall not do so” is that] you should not do like the deeds of the nations so that your sins would cause the sanctuary of [i.e., built by] your fathers to be destroyed. — [Sifrei]" (thanks to the Chabad website and Judaica Press for the English translation).

The relevance of R. Ishmael's comment needs, I hope, no explaining. But the verses raised a different thought in my mind. The only thing said in the Torah to be created "in the image of God" is a human being. The defacement of the human faces of the mother and son we visited at Hadassah is a defacement of the divine image. So, too, the boy repeatedly kicked in the head as he lay on the ground in Zion Square in Jerusalem, until he lost consciousness and stopped breathing.

You might ask why I haven't written something similar in the wake of the many fearsome terror attacks perpetrated against Jews by Palestinians. Do I feel more for Palestinians than for Jews? That is an utterly heartless question. Palestinian terrorists and their supporters need to make their own accounting before God and humanity. When my fellow Jewish Israelis perpetrate acts of terror or mob violence that -- for me -- evoke memories of what my parents told me of their experiences in Europe in the 1930s, it is I and we who must take responsibility and make an accounting. It is I and we who must ask whether our sins are endangering our sanctuary.

(No, we're not Nazis -- I won't go to jail or even risk public approbation for saying this.)

Our police can stop a kid carrying an illicit beer bottle in Zion Square, but evidently they can't show up in time to stop a lynch. Supposedly, we need our army in the territories to stay in control, but they, too, can't be relied upon to stop terror attacks against Palestinian civilians. We need to call them to account. We need them to show their strength in protecting all those who live under our governance.

You may also ask where are the Palestinians coming to visit Jews injured by acts of Palestinian terror. I respond with the father's wish, standing by his burnt daughter's bedside, on the eve of the Eid and of Ellul, our month of repentance, for us all to live as neighbors.

Why I Am a Religious Woman

As I was preparing a sign to take to last night's demonstration in Jerusalem against right-wing thuggery, it occurred to me that I've been doing this for a long time. Not often enough, I admit, but I started going to demonstrations (against the Vietnam war) in high school, and I'm now well up in my sixth decade.

So where has it gotten me, all this demonstrating? Has it had an effect? Is the world a better place?

With age, I become more skeptical. The world -- the human world -- doesn't seem to be showing any less warts than it did 40-odd years ago. Or 4000-odd years ago, when the Torah had G!d declaring that "the inclination of the human heart is wicked from its youth." Is peace in the Middle East possible? Can humans learn to live together tolerantly, without exploiting, shunning, wounding and killing? Can religion inspire without giving way to obscurantism? Can the natural world survive us?

No, as I grow older, I tend more toward the perspective of Ecclesiastes, though perhaps there are some new things under the sun. Our urge to mass slaughter and environmental destruction have not changed much, but our ability to make good on them has grown.

Do I think G!d will save (the state of) Israel? Did G!d do that in the past? No, I think G!d's pretty much put that in our hands. And our hands are shaking a lot, lately. Messiah is something accomplished by humans of faith, who can produce good leaders (who stay good) and follow them in good directions. Think about it.

So if I think our efforts are unlikely to redeem the world, and more likely to make us look like laughingstocks in a world that glorifies money and power, why am I still at it?

That, my friends, is faith. I believe in the Torah's commands to do good and be just, however short I fall. I believe we are commanded to keep trying, tenaciously, no matter what. Even if there's little hope of success. Even if they laugh at us or throw things at us. That, too, will keep happening. The world hangs between destructive and constructive forces. We are commanded to keep trying to tip the balance, and to create faith communities for that purpose.

I believe, too, in the extraordinary power of art, in the inspiration to beauty rooted in Spirit, in truths that lie beyond what we can intellectualize. It's not just the hand of the artist, natural or human; it's our eye -- our senses and mind -- programmed to receive and recognize all this, to be inspired and, sometimes, to inspire. To see and, sometimes, to be changed.

There's a spiritual dimension to human relationships, too -- to our ability to connect, communicate, empathize, share and help. And somehow, from what I have seen, those relationships grow best in communities that create common ground and prioritize connecting, communicating, empathizing, sharing and helping in light of a common purpose.

Do you need to be a religious Jew, or a religious person, to believe in all this? Well, no. Sometimes religion can distract from these very purposes. There are many paths of truth, of the same spirit that shows itself in art and in relationships. There are also many paths that lead astray, and even some of them have sparks of spirit in them.

To me, though, it is faith that keeps turning me toward the big issues, bringing them into focus even in the cacophony of religious voices pointing in several different directions. It is faith that keeps directing me to go back and try again. That spirit that shows itself in the pursuit of the good, the just and the holy, in bringing communities together, and in the appreciation of beauty -- my word for it is G!d, though some have other words for it. And I've found nothing better than a community of faith to create and bind human relationships, by rooting them in the joint pursuit of the holy. Ultimately -- because I do live in a community -- it is religion that holds it all together for me.

And that's why you'll still find me at another demonstration -- for a cause that may not be identified with religion.

Why I Support Israel's Tent Protesters -- And Why You Should, Too

"When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget your God ... And you say to yourselves, 'My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me. ...' For your God is ... the great, the mighty and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing food and clothing." (Deut. 8:12-14, 17; 10:17-18 -- from this week's Torah portion)

According to this morning's paper, the month-long movement of social protest here in Israel has aroused little interest and less support around the world. With a world in financial crisis; existential threats to Israel's security -- grimly brought home to us yet again today; a diplomatic stalemate and a cratering image; deep cracks in Israel's democracy; boycotts to fight (or support) -- why take an interest in a scraggly group of youths in shorts and tank tops, lounging around in tents and keeping their lips tightly buttoned on all of the above issues? You might say that, but I think you'd be wrong. From where I sit, those kids look like Israel's last, best hope.

Full disclosure: My son is at one of the tent camps now, in the center of Jerusalem. He's almost 25, post-combat service, post-volunteering in a kibbutz and in a home for troubled teenagers, post-Jewish study year, now going into his second year at the Hebrew University. A serious young man, just starting out in life, not untypical of dozens of young men and women of his generation. He's grown up in a middle-class home and never known hunger or deprivation, though he's met those who have. He has a strong Jewish and Israeli identity. And he's convinced that Israel needs a new social contract -- convinced enough to set it at the very top of his personal list of priorities. Convinced enough to spend night after night at the tent camp, deep in discussion of how to bring about a change in Israel's direction.

My son belongs to a generation that's come of age and realized that what the Promised Land promises them, under current conditions, is a life of increasing debt, in which two professional salaries are not enough to make ends meet; an economy that's been sold out to a handful of tycoons and cartels; a struggling "free" education system in which all that's free are the teacher and the blackboard, and everything else, if it's available at all, comes at a price; a deteriorating public health system; an environment that's being devoured to create housing for the rich; and a society that leaves its poor and needy without the resources to get on their feet. The kids who are out there demonstrating are the strong ones. They don't need handouts and aren't asking for them. They're asking for a stake in society, not just for themselves, but also for the less fortunate. They're asking for a society made over according to their ideals.

Many of these kids are quite well aware that the ongoing diplomatic and political stalemate has produced a stalemated society. But they know that airing these issues will create dissension, where they need unity to create change. One of the most remarkable aspects of this movement is how little rancor it has produced. These are the kids who finished their army or national service and went off to see the world. Their travels made them realize how deeply Israeli they are and how much they love their language and their country, even when it gives them so little. They're smart, resourceful and fun-loving; give them a square meter for a tent, and they'll do the rest. They could give up and go elsewhere, but for the moment, they don't want to. They want the Promised Land to turn back into their Land of Promise.

These kids, if we keep them, are set to become the backbone of Israel's society. They're our future, which means that they also hold the key to the future of the country and -- at least to an extent -- of the Jewish people. Let them down, and we're lost.

So, shouldn't they be talking about those existential problems that are of such grave concern to Jews around the world? The stalemated situation that's partially responsible for society's woes? The injustices towards Israel's second-class citizens and third-class non-citizens? I say: wait. Once the issue of social injustice has been raised and aired; once it's allowed to stay and be debated in the public space, it demands examination of the whole society.

This movement that's brought hundreds of thousands out into the public space is the only one on the horizon that has the potential to break the stalemates and open minds to imagine different futures. If you're hoping for an Israel that can grow, change and forge ahead -- give it your love and support.

How long will we keep hopping between two opinions?

The Hebrew name of the great holiday of Passover, whose conclusion we mark tonight and tomorrow (as Christians this year conclude the celebration of Easter), is Pesach -- so called, because G!d "skipped" (pasach) over the doorways marked with the blood of the Passover sacrifice in searching out Egypt's first-born sons for slaying. It was this terrible final plague that persuaded Pharaoh to let the Jews go free.

The association of Pesach with the prophet Elijah is well known: Elijah's cup sits in the center of the Seder table, and it is to him that we open our doors before concluding the Seder. Elijah is also the speaker in one of the rare appearances of the word pasach in the Prophets: "How long will you keep hopping (poschim) between opinions?" he demands of the Israelites on Mt. Carmel. "If the Lord is G!d, follow him; and if Baal, follow him!" As R. Yaakov Madan points out in a pre-Pesach sermon published on the Internet, this doesn't meant that the Israelites were dithering between G!d-worship and Baal-worship; rather, having failed to make a decision, they were doing both at the same time. This course, Elijah warned them, was untenable; it would lead to corruption, violence, doom.

As some modern commentators point out, it's not always bad to dither; sometimes it is wise to draw back and consider the many facets of a situation before making a decision. Indeed, to make a wise decision, critical thinking is called for -- critical thinking that allows us to comprehend things and their opposites, differences of opinion, multiplicity, and the possibility of numerous truths, or numerous facets of truth -- the "70 faces of Torah." By contrast, action is brutal; in taking one course and persisting with it, we reject others. Yet it is by taking decisive action that we achieve tikkun ha'olam: liberation, the rectification of injustice, and the fulfillment of dreams.

Indeed, that is part and parcel of the Passover story. Legend tells us that not all the Israelites came out of Egypt: Only those who were willing to make a stand and paint their doorposts red with the blood of the sacrifice were liberated.

I thought of Elijah recently when I attended a demonstration against sex segregation on public buses serving (among others) the ultra-Orthodox population in Jerusalem. Yes, one could make an argument that such segregation is justified by the religious sensitivities of this population -- or by the economic needs of the public bus company, which fears competition from private companies serving this population alone. For these reasons, as one of the speakers at the demonstration pointed out, the government is pursuing a policy of trying to have it both ways --both approving and rejecting sex segregation -- rather than taking a firm stand on a policy that may render women second-class citizens in the public transportation system, of which they are prime users.

But isn't this also true of some other important aspects of our existence? Where it comes to the territories, too, we want to have it both ways: We want to stay in the territories and to withdraw from them. To keep Jerusalem united and to keep it on the negotiating table. To have a Jewish state and to keep the Palestinian population under our control. When I say to people: OK, so we're going for a bi-national state, they look at me with horror. But: Isn't that what we have?

The Passover story, the leap of Nachshon into the Red Sea, the story of Elijah on Mt. Carmel -- all these teach that there are times when we need to make decisions, however heartbreaking they may be in some respects, and see them through. Notwithstanding the blood smeared on the doorposts, the path of the Israelites led to freedom, spiritual uplift, and dreams of universal justice. May we all be blessed with knowing when we are called upon to take a stand, and may we have the courage to do so.

Postscript -- there are also spouses who want to stay married and be separated at the same time, to keep their wives tethered to them and be free to do as they please. Here, too, "hopping between two opinions" is the way to destruction.

Maternal Wisdom and Solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

I often think that word “solution” should be expunged from the language. I do mean that, among other things, in the sense of “solving the Israel-Palestine problem.” Speaking of “solutions” indicates that there is a definable, condensable problem, to which there is some kind of unique “solution” out there, which, if we could only get everyone to see it, could turn a hopelessly muddled situation into a good, well ordered reality. The American-style “can-do” mindset sets us to thinking that if there’s a problem, then of course we MUST and CAN solve it. But jumping too quickly to “solutions,” clever as we think they are, tends to pull our eyeball off the problems, which meanwhile languish and fester in all their knotty complexity.

Last week, I turned to the weekly Torah portion of Toledot for some illumination on this issue, with the help of the commentary of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch. Near the beginning of the reading, it is said of Rebekah:

The children struggled in her womb, and she said, “If so, why do I exist?” She went to inquire of G!d, and G!d answered her: “Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau. Then his brother emerged, holding on the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob.

Even before they were born, these two children were locked in struggle. Rebekah was deeply and spiritually involved in their striving, and from before they were born until the end of the story, she struggled, as a mother, to cope.

A Talmudic proverb says that a child or a young person should be educated “according to their own way.” Hirsch asserts that the parents, Isaac and Rebekah, in their eagerness to pass on the spiritual heritage of Abraham, were wrong to try to educate these two very different children in the same classroom. Sitting in school was good for Jacob, but not for Esau. Like a child with an “attention deficit” issue, he rebelled and ran away to the fields.

Years pass, and the two boys confront each other over a stewpot. Whether this exchange was “for real” or, as Hirsch suggests, a boyish acting out of the rivalry between the brothers, each must have brought to it his own resentments: Esau, for his parents’ inattention to his specific needs; Jacob, for a deficit of father-love. As we know, “Isaac favored Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah favored Jacob.” Each, says Hirsch, also brought his own natural inclinations: Esau, roaming the fields, had no real desire for the property and responsibility that would come with the birthright, while Jacob longed for the heritage of his forebears. (As Hirsch points out, the upshot was exactly the reverse: Jacob, after the affair of the paternal blessing, ended up being forced to leave his parental home with nothing but his staff and the clothes on his back, leaving Esau to inherit the family estate.)

Sensing the enmity between the boys, Isaac tried to resolve it by imposing the “fair and square” solution of giving Esau his paternal blessing, as the rightful firstborn. But Rebekah understood that Esau, the loner, was unsuited to spiritual leadership. Dressing Jacob in Esau’s clothes, as Hirsch presents it, was a scheme to buy time; Rebekah knew that the deception would be discovered immediately – and such, in fact, was her intent. By foiling Isaac’s plan to hand over the leadership immediately – though he was still far from being on his deathbed – she hoped to allow her two sons more time to settle their differences and define their roles over against one another.

Here, too, though, she misstepped grievously. Esau’s understandable fury became murderous. Ever “the mother of Jacob and Esau,” as she is called at the end of the story, Rebekah was alive to the complex and conflicting emotions and inclinations of both her sons. Educated by her failures and continuing to grow and develop as a mother, she arrived at the painful understanding that their struggle could not be resolved quickly, and so they must be separated. She sent her favorite son away to a distant land, from which he was not to return in her lifetime. Living apart, however, the two men eventually arrived at a point in their life-paths where they were able to come together again without rage, if not in perfect brotherly love.

Today, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, continue to struggle. What could not be resolved in the biblical narrative itself, and has not been resolved in the millennia since passed, evidently will not be resolved in our time, notwithstanding the almost painfully naïve ambitions of each new American president, or the duplicitous rhetoric of successive national leaders on every side. Don’t get me wrong: I think it is urgent to address the wrongs of the occupation, even as we protect ourselves from terror. But that is exactly the point. As we pursue the chimera of a “solution,” the occupation festers, the struggle continues, and rage, resentment and competition over resources claim yet more victims. Positing "fair" solutions is easy. Addressing the problems on the ground, while staying attuned to the spiritual and material yearnings of Palestinians and Israelis (including settlers), requires far greater wisdom, intense and unremitting work, and willingness to fail and try again.

Roger Cohen wrote this week in the International Herald Tribune that an Israeli-Palestinian solution is probably impossible under present conditions, given the hostility and fear that has built up on all sides. A truce, he declares, is not only the best one can hope for at the moment, but a worthy goal. I would add that if we can keep our eyeball, our minds and our efforts on the problems, we might even aspire to address and ameliorate them.

New Orleans and Thinking the Unthinkable

What does New Orleans have to do with Tisha be'Av?

Thanks to my dear friend, brilliant sociologist Brenda Brasher, I found myself in the "Big Easy" a couple of weeks ago, attending the conference she organized on "Jewish Women and Philanthropy." While I was there, Brenda helped me get my consciousness raised about the disaster that struck the city, and the efforts at recovery.

On a "Katrina tour" of the parts of the city hardest hit by the hurricane, I heard the bitterness in the voice of our soft-spoken guide, Gail Cherlew, whose home was flooded, destroying most of the possessions that make a life. "The flood was a man-made disaster," she told us more than once. Contrary to what one may have heard, it wasn't the earthen levees lining the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain that gave way. It was the drainage canals running through parts of the city, whose purpose is to drain off floodwaters and pump them into the lake. And those, Gail told us, were not built to the specifications set down for them by the federal government. Meant to go 50 feet into the ground, they went down a mere 14 feet. When the test came, they simply fell down.

Somewhere along the way, the money for building those canal walls was siphoned off, leaving the city at risk of catastrophe. The possibility of a catastrophic storm had in fact been considered -- yet was put aside as "unthinkable."

Maybe you can already see what I'm getting at. In the additional reading for the Torah portion of Deuteronomy, read last Shabbat as part of the lead-up to Tisha be'Av, we heard: "Your silver has turned to dross; your wine is cut with water. Your rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves, every one avid for presents and greedy for gifts; they do not judge the case of the orphan, and the widow's cause never reaches them" (Isaiah 1:22-23).

Which of these decadent ways created the aperture by which the catastrophe of conquest rushed in? We cannot know. It is said that the first destruction was a result of corruption; the second -- leading to a 2,000 year exile -- of divisiveness and mutual hostility. But these were the indirect causes; the direct cause was conquest and defeat by a greater power that became an enemy. Decadence blinded the nation to the reality of the risks facing it and to the holes in its defenses. The possibility of conquest was the elephant in the room; it was "unthinkable" -- and so it was not prevented.

People will disagree about what the "elephant in the room" is today, and of course that's one of the problems. There are plenty of elephants to worry about, from meteorites striking the earth to swine flu. I personally see a grave risk in the policy of continuing to settle the territories while hoping that the "Palestinian problem" will somehow go away; and I see a grave source of corruption in keeping masses of people in our territory without the civil rights emanating from democracy. And what about the possibility of alienating our great friend, the United States? "Unthinkable"! Others will disagree with me about the elephant's identity. But perhaps the real difficulty is that decadence in our society will keep us from recognizing the real risks and coping with them before -- well, I don't want to say. It's unthinkable!

An Israeli whom I happened to meet in the US before setting out for New Orleans said to me: "I can't understand why people would go back to live in such a place, knowing that a hurricane could come again!" I responded as you probably would: "And you're from the Middle East??" "That's different," she said. "it's home; that's where my family is." It's often the risk closest to home that we don't want to think about.

To go back to New Orleans, I met wonderful people there. They are committed to rebuilding their city, making it better than before, and sealing the holes in its defenses. And they are doing that by getting the city's diverse communities to work together. Now that I've been there, I feel a little bit like a citizen of New Orleans, and as an ambassador, I take back this message: Don't ignore the unthinkable. By letting empathy grow and rooting out corruption, we, too, can remove the blinders and see to our defenses.

Independence Day

Coincidentally or not, Israel's Independence Day fell this year in the week of the reading of "Aharei Mot" -- "After the death of the two sons of Aharon" -- which is concerned with the rituals of Yom Kippur. It seemed appropriate, on this day, to do some soul-searching, some thinking about the years of my life in this country, and how we go into the years that lie ahead.

I've lived in Israel for 33 of my 55 years -- which means that, by now, I've been here not only for much longer than half of my life, but also for longer than half the life of the State. My Hebrew is still accented, but I'm far from a greener, an "olah hadashah." The four children born to me in this country are grown-up Israelis.

It's no secret that my politics are left-of-center, even, as these things go nowadays, far left; or that I'm one of those maverick religious lefties. That puts me out of sync with the politics of Israel's majority. It means I'm doomed to feel the pain of both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more so since my spouse works for a human-rights organization and spends many of his days traipsing around the territories, experiencing the hardships faced by Palestinians at first hand. But I'm also a mother of soldiers in the IDF, and a citizen of Jerusalem, city of spiritual glory and terror.

Many people on the left are pretty critical of this country and pessimistic about its future. I'm critical, too. There's plenty of human folly to be seen here, and cruelty, and corruption. Yet if I ask myself, in that soul-searching mood, whether I have regrets about settling here -- no, honestly, I don't. Maybe it's because Judaism, Jewish culture, and Hebrew culture are so vital to me. Maybe it's because of the unparalleled energy I feel here. Maybe it's the idiosyncratic people, the let-it-all-hang-out ways of relating (for better and worse). Maybe it's the richness of our community and family life. Or the breathtaking landscape. What I know is that from the moment I arrived here, it felt right, and after 33 years, it still feels right. The bad things pain me; they don't make me feel like going anywhere else. I think you call that love.

Some folks on the left say they don't feel like celebrating anymore, because Israel is too wicked, too corrupted. And yet, to me, every day in Jerusalem is a fragile, shimmering gift. I insist on holding onto the contradictions, and still blessing God for what we have, and what we have done.

Actually, we read two sedras this week, "Aharei mot," and also "Kedoshim" -- Be Holy! A sedra that includes a great many ethical commandments, including the commandment not to oppress "the other." While celebrating what we have, it behooves us to bear in mind that holiness is not a state (or a State, or a Land), but a commandment. Not, "you are holy," but "be holy!" And not, "you are righteous," but "pursue righteousness!" That's why, for example, I found the recent pronouncements of Ehud Barak and others that "the IDF is the most moral army in the world" ridiculous. Such declarations sound like what they are -- babble. Morality is not a state of being, but a constant pursuit, and the moment we let go of that pursuit to rest on our "moral" laurels, we lose them. If Barak had said, "the IDF strives toward a level of morality worthy of our people" -- that, I think, I and others could respect (and by "people," I mean all the denizens of the Land of Israel/Palestine). And if the army's leaders could inculcate that striving into our soldiers and their officers, the news coming out of our conflict zone might improve considerably.

Having reached middle age, I am past hoping that the human race can be perfected. Israel is no exception, but since I can't buy out of humanity, I've stopped looking for that cool white space in which I can glory in pure righteousness and criticize others for being defective. That's not what we're asked to do; as humans divinely commanded, we're given the Sisyphean task of striving constantly to correct ourselves, which is, indeed, the spirit of Yom Kippur. So, no regrets, but if I could have a wish for our country's future, this would be it: That the energy we devote to self-criticism -- and Israelis are world leaders in that activity -- should be spent in striving to "turn from evil and do good, seek peace, and pursue it."

The Invisible People

The plagues commenced in Egypt with the ghastly plague of blood, and continued, perhaps oddly, with the comical-sounding plague of frogs. Commenting on the Hebrew word tzefardea, 'frog,' R. Samson Raphael Hirsch quotes a fanciful etymology, according to which the word is a compound of the Aramaic word tzefar, 'morning,' and the Hebrew word da, 'knowing.' The frog, he explains, is a meek creature active mainly at night; it knows the coming of morning and is quick to hide before most humans are up and about. What happened in the plague is not that there suddenly were frogs where none had been, but that the creatures, in defiance of their usual nature, stayed up and went where people could see them. Instead of staying under the sink, they jumped up onto the plates. Just so, continues Hirsch, were the slaves in that society -- always present, but rarely noticed. The portent of the plague was that the society's "invisible people" were about to become visible and trouble the nation's consciousness.

In the plague of locusts, too, an army of small, ordinarily barely noticeable creatures rises up to "cover the eye of the land." So, as the disasters piled up, did the Hebrew slaves become the most noticeable and troublesome group in society. To end the plague, God sweeps up the locusts and drops them in the area of the Sea of Reeds -- pointing to the spot where the slaves were to have their final, redemptive confrontation with Pharaoh's army.

In that confrontation, two elements of society that usually hover just below our consciousness, intermingled in society and taken for granted, are set out in the stark light of a desert morning, with the sun glinting off the sea: the most oppressed, and the perpetrators of oppression. For once, we can tell who is who; they stand on one side, and we on the other. And even then, with the final overthrow of the oppressors, God is said to have chided his angels: "My creatures are drowning in the sea, and you are singing songs?"

The lesson, perhaps, is that no creature is invisible to God, and we, to realize God's image in ourselves, need to open our eyes to the "invisible people" who ought to be troubling our consciousness. Case in point: When our planes and tanks wreak havoc upon a civilian population, we'll never be able to assess the extent to which the destruction was justified unless that population is visible to us -- unless we can see them as real people, and not just as "the enemy."

Unless we want to end up where some of our enemies want us -- in the sea -- we'd better not wait until they "cover the eye of the land."

Reclaiming our honor

This week we began to read the Book of Exodus in the Torah cycle, but the harrowing events of the week keep taking me back to the story of the rape of Dina in the Book of Genesis. Dina, as we know, had her honor sullied by Shechem, son of Hamor. Her brothers, led by Shimon and Levi, took their fearful vengeance by tricking the men of Shechem into circumcising themselves and then, as the men were recovering from the painful surgery, storming the town and slaughtering them. Jacob, upon hearing of the massacre, rails against his sons: "You have made me odious among the inhabitants of the land!" And they respond: "Should our sister be treated like a whore?"

There's an obvious answer to that rhetorical question, and it resembles the answer to the response I hear when questions are raised about the Gaza offensive: "Should we let them shoot rockets at our cities?" No, we could not overlook the rape of our sister; no, we cannot pass over the rocket attacks on our cities. But did that make it right, good or wise to massacre the men of Shechem? And does it make it right, good or wise to bomb Gaza to its foundations?

The raid on Shechem resulted in the destabilization and flight of Jacob's family, turning what was supposed to have been a homecoming into a renewed exile. And now comes an eerie link with this week's reading. Jacob's response, "you have made me odious among the inhabitants of the land," is echoed by the complaint of his descendants, slaves in Egypt, to Moses: "You have made us odious to Pharaoh and his courtiers!"

Coming from slaves, of course, this is an absurd complaint. Odious is exactly what they already were. They had no need to fear becoming odious; Jacob did. In fighting for their sister's honor, Dina's brothers lost their own. It was only to be regained on the long road out of Egypt.

Yes, there was and is a call to reclaim the honor of Sderot and Ashkelon, to repel the violence perpetrated against our cities and our citizens. But by fighting kill with overkill, we lose what we seek to regain.

States are charged with wielding violence to protect their citizens. Their responsibility is to wield minimum violence for maximum effectiveness. In Gaza, I fear, we've done the opposite: maximum violence with minimum effectiveness, leaving our cities still open to violence, our captive Gilad still in enemy hands.

The time has come to regain our lost honor and our hope. But, as the Israelites learned on the way out of Egypt, sometimes there are no shortcuts. If we want to keep moving out of exile rather than back in, we'll need to take not the short road of overkill, but the long road of wisdom.

He Lived

"He lived" -- these are the opening words of this week's Torah portion and the title by which it is known. "Jacob lived for seventeen years in the land of Egypt, and the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty-seven years. And the days of Israel drew near to death, and he called for his son Joseph ..."

"He lived" -- the expression alerts us that Jacob/Israel was nearing the end of his life, that he was on the cusp, between life and death, soon to pass over. The events of the last week have reminded us constantly how delicate that cusp is, how easily a human being can be swept over from one side, irretrievably, to the other. Indeed, as he contemplates his end at the age of 147, Jacob/Israel recalls the death of Rachel, so unexpected, and she still so young, when they still wanted more children together. In compensation, his first act on his deathbed is to adopt Joseph's two sons, as if they had been born to him by Rachel.

And Jacob/Israel recalls his twenty years as a bereaved father. For all those years of guilt and grief, he knew that his beloved son Joseph had died by violence, and that he, as a father, had failed to protect him.

Joseph, we know, was miraculously "brought back to life" for his father. In the end it was all a big mistake, a big lie; Joseph had been alive all along. In days of grief, we fantasize that our loved one will still walk in the door, laughing, alive. But the fathers and mothers of the young men killed this week know that, for them, there will be no resurrection. As do the relatives -- mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers -- of the hundreds of human beings whose lives were ended by our attacks, and those who were killed by theirs. They are all irretrievably dead. When the slide show on the news site is replaced tomorrow by another, and the talk moves to "solutions," they will still, irretrievably, be dead.

Two of the soldiers in our household are home today for the weekend, and the debates are on, passionately. Israel cannot tolerate Hamas's rockets, insists the younger generation. We have to do what we have to do. We ourselves are willing to lay down our lives for this -- the protection of our people. Israel's army is the most moral in the world. They invited our attack; what country in the world would put up with eight years of cross-border rockets? It's hard to argue with them.

It's also hard to argue with dead bodies, the bodies of those who were killed because they had nowhere to go, in teeming Gaza, to dodge our bombs, even when our army took the "moral" step of warning them to get out of the way. I can tell you this: The propaganda machine is working hard and well on our side. The only way to overcome the threat Hamas poses to Israel is to break them by violence, for all the horrendous cost. And possibly the only way for the Labor party and Kadima to overcome the Likud in the forthcoming election is by proving that Israel can "do it right" this time -- can fight effectively, to win, to restore our national pride.

For some reason there seems to be no doubt that our bombs and our soldiers have the potential to achieve a clearcut victory over the many-headed hydra of terrorism, and that the human cost is inevitable. If we control the territory, we CAN beat back terror, say my sons. Look what we (meaning they and their fellow soldiers) are doing in the West Bank.

Perhaps they are right, and Israel is doing what it has to do. But did it have to come to this? Was there something we could have done, much farther back, to play things out differently? Are there Josephs among us, able to see fifteen years into the future (not to speak of 150 -- which is surely the time-frame contemplated by our foes) and plan for the different scenarios that might transpire?

We live -- at a cost in death and destruction, to our side and to theirs. Is this the inevitable price of history moving on? We live. Is there a way for us to live into the future, so that we live, and they live?

Joseph and the Business Cycle

It occurred to me that the Torah portions for last week and this week -- Miketz and Vayiggash -- are uniquely relevant to the financial crisis, which the press highlighted as the sea change of the year just ended.

Last week, Pharaoh had his famous dreams of the fat cows and the skinny ones, and the fat ears of corn and the skinny ones. Unlike many national leaders of the modern period, Pharaoh took notice of his disturbing dream, sensing its hint of trouble brewing for his prosperous kingdom. He searched for a person in his kingdom -- any person, even a jailbird! -- with the ability to interpret the disturbing sign, and so was Joseph brought before him. The amazing thing that happened there was not only that Joseph dared speak truth to power -- but that power was able to hear the truth.

And the truth was that no matter how secure the boom times might appear, they would inevitably be followed by bust (business cycle, anyone?). Joseph didn't need to be a prophet to arrive at that thought; he needed common sense and -- just as important -- the sense to heed it. Perhaps even more than that, he needed the sensitivity and intuition to hear the stirrings of Pharaoh's own mind and soul, the sense to agree with them, and the courage to speak them aloud in a society where it seemed that the boom time would last forever.

So what's the lesson for 2009? First, to all of us: Dare to speak to truth to power, and dare to trust common sense. Second: Power, keep your ears open to hear the truth. And third: Power, seek out those with the keen intellect, intuition and ability to sense the undercurrents to overt reality, and to suggest wise and prudent courses of action.

Sound obvious? So why are the bombs falling again in our part of the world? Is there no one with the ability to spy out a wise and prudent course of action in dealing with our enemies? Must it always come down to brute violence? (To be sure, sometimes it must; I'm not saying our army should be disbanded, but that there might be craftier and more prudent ways of outmaneuvering our enemies.)

Joseph -- a story for our time.

The heart of Jerusalem

About 30 years ago, when I was still rather new in Israel, and the country itself was both newer and older than it is now, I saw a film about Jerusalem as it was then. A recurrent image was a scene of pedestrians crossing at Jerusalem's very first traffic light, at the junction of King George St., Strauss St. and Jaffa Road -- then the heart of west Jerusalem. Then as now, you could cross that junction in six directions when the light was green for pedestrians, and the bustle was so great that the film's dizzied protagonist passed out in the middle of the x created by the striped pedestrian crossings.

This morning I darted across that junction on red, making for Ma'ayan Stub, one of Jerusalem's oldest commercial establishments. Go into Ma'ayan Stub, soon to exist no more, and forget the glitz of modern Israel. The salesladies, piously bewigged, were all older than I am, and I'm no young bird any more. Worn, dark wooden floors, shelves, counters. I asked where the towels were and was directed to the kind of creaky old staircase that takes me back to childhood haunts in America. With the help of another aging saleslady, I picked out two towels and asked where to pay. "Go downstairs, and I'll take the towels down," she said, and she walked to a railing overlooking the cashier's desk and dropped the towels straight down. Back down the staircase, I asked if I'd come to where my towels had fallen. "They didn't fall, they landed," replied the aggrieved cashier.

It'll be gone soon, to make way for some gentrified development or modern store. Go in there and smell it while it lasts. It's not the perfumed reek that greets you in the Mashbir, still Jerusalem's only department store. Go in there and remember that the smell of Jerusalem is -- also -- the smell of old wood and dust.