Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
1 V’aysem Lecha Shalom: The Threefold Road to Peace Parshat Naso 5769 By Rabbi Mark B Greenspan This Shabbat our Torah portion contains one of the best known passages in the Bible: the Birkat Kohanim or the Priestly Benediction. This simple but eloquent statement is one of the most often quoted sections of the Bible. Jewish parents use it on Friday nights to bless their children; rabbis and priests alike invoke these words regularly in prayer and celebration. The Birkat Kohanim is also among the oldest sections of the Bible of which we have physical evidence. Among the exhibits in the Israel Museum (in Jerusalem) you’ll find a small silver plaque from the first temple period which contains the words of the Priestly Blessing. The Birkat Kohanim, then, is the quintessential blessing, dating back almost three thousand years, and yet timely enough to find its way into the Star Trek movies! This passage contains three statements made up of fifteen words: “May Adonai bless and guard you. May Adonai shine his face upon you and be gracious to you. May Adonai show you kindness and grant you peace.” In Hebrew these verses are made up respectively of three, five and seven words. But what do they mean? Is there logic to the order in which they’re recited? And why do they end with shalom, with peace? The sages make a great deal of the fact that the Birkat Kohanim ends with shalom. There are many statements in rabbinic literature about the importance of shalom, the most precious of all vessels, as the sages like to say and one of the names of God. The rabbis tell us that shalom is the culmination of all blessings; that is why all of our major prayers end with shalom. At the end of the Amida and the Kaddish concludes with Oseh shalom bimromav, “May the one who makes peace above, make peace for us and for all the people of Israel.” It’s no accident that the Birkat Kohanim ends with shalom. Without shalom, none of the other blessings have any meaning or purpose. Shalom is more than just an absence of war; it is a sense of wholeness, harmony and goodness. It is the essence of what we strive for in the world and what we want for ourselves as individuals. The Birkat Kohanim is not just a blessing but a road map. It teaches us how to attain shalom in our lives. It suggests that there is the threefold path that leads to peace, to shalom in our lives and in the world. First we say Yivarechecha Adonai v’yishmerecha, “May Adonai bless and guard you.” The sages generally understand this statement as a blessing for the material necessities of life. We ask God to bless us with the things we need to live a wholesome life: food, shelter, and health, and then we ask, ‘having given us these blessings, please God, preserve them as well. There can be no peace for people who live in a state of constant need and deprivation. Those whose lives are filled with misery will strike out at the world and grasp wildly at the basic needs of life. Having asked for our most basic physically needs, we then say, Ya’er panav elecha vihuneka, “May Adonai shine His face and be gracious to you.” This is probably the most difficult of the three statements in the Birkat Kohanim to understand. The Midrash offers many different interpretations for 2 these words: What does it mean to have God shine His face upon us? Is this the mystical light of the Shechinah? Does it mean to have a cheery and positive outlook on life? Or is the light of which we are speaking here the light of Torah; that is, insight and understanding? Whichever interpretation is correct, I believe the underlying idea is to see the world in a new way, in a new light. It means to leave the past behind and perceive new opportunities and challenges. Having food and shelter and the physical necessities of life aren’t enough if we live in a state of constant rage and defensiveness or if we believe we are victims; if we cannot see the possibility of leaving the curses of the past behind and creating new opportunities for the future. This light, then, is insight, enlightenment and openness to a better world. It is to gain a new outlook on life and a different insight into ourselves. When God shines His light upon us we see the world differently! And finally we say Yisa Adonai panav elecha v’yasem lecha shalom, “May God be kind to you and grant you shalom.” It is only when our stomachs are full, when we feel secure and safe, and when we are prepared to see the world as a place of light and not darkness that we can begin to speak about shalom, about peace. The Birkat Kohanim ends with peace because peace is not the beginning of the conversation but its culmination. It is not the starting point but the destination. You cannot begin by making peace until you know that you and the one with whom you are fighting are no longer hungry, that you and he have a place to live, that you and your adversary both feel safe and that you both can see that there is a better way of seeing the world. Only then can you speak of peace. As you all know President Barak Obama gave a major, if not controversial address in Cairo this week on the need to find a common ground for Moslems and the western world. His words were addressed primarily to the Moslem world though Americans and Israelis listened carefully to what he had to say in order to wring out every possible nuance from his words. For Israel and for Jewish people, this address has been a topic of anxiety. Would our president question the historic alliance between Israel and America? What would he say about the need for compromise and concessions? For some this speech was sign of the President’s naiveté in dealing with terrorism; for others his speech did not go nearly far enough. The fact that people on the right and the left were unhappy with what the president had to say suggests to me that he found just the right tone: one which called on both Israelis and the Palestinians to account for their actions and to look forward and not backward; one which demanded that the Moslem world think seriously about the issues which divide us and that Israel recognize the inevitability of a two state solution. The truth is that a speech is just a speech no matter how beautiful and articulate it is and that in the end what will matter is not what Barak Obama said in Cairo but what actions he takes in the coming months in Washington. I, for one, am willing to wait and see. Being a good friend sometimes means being a critic and telling the truth even when it hurts. Being a friend to Israel does not mean agreeing with all its actions; being an ally means standing by Israel and assuring its security while helping it out of the quagmire in which it finds itself today. I believe that this is what most Israelis and Arabs want more than anything and that most people in Israel recognize that Israel cannot afford to hold on to territory in which one must rule over a majority of Arabs with an iron fist. Very quickly such a state will cease to be Jewish or democratic. But to have such an agreement there must be someone with whom both sides can speak freely and with trust – and Israel has yet to find such partners. That is what Barak Obama needs to understand. If the present government in Israel is more right wing and more reticent to talk with its neighbors, it is because the democratically elected majority of people in Israel are weary and no longer trust the people 3 on the other side of the table. They have not been given any reason to extend a hand of peace to their neighbors. There is no equation of moral equivalency when comparing Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. Israel has repeatedly searched for compromise and solutions and has had its efforts frustrated by violence and war. The thing I found most disturbing about Barak Obama’s speech the other day was his comparison of Jewish history of anti-Semitism with “the suffering of the Palestinian people in pursuit of a homeland.” First the Jewish people never represented a threat to the nations that persecuted them; and second every effort to create a Palestinian state has been dashed not by Israel but by the Palestinians themselves. That being said, Israel actions are seen as provocative, whether it is building a security fence through the middle of Palestinian communities or putting up new settlements in contested areas. In the Middle East we talk about facts on the ground – groups establishing themselves in order to redefine the borders and boundaries of a nation. These are controversial issues – and I am not a diplomat so I won’t try to solve them this morning. But what I can offer, as a Rabbi, is that peace is a process, and it must begin by each side recognizing the suffering of its neighbor much as each wishes its neighbors to recognize its legitimate rights to a homeland. As long as there is misery in the Palestinian world, there can be no possibility of peace. As long as Israel continues to thrive while others live in refugee camps there can be no conversation. It doesn’t matter whether Israel was responsible for the situation. It simply means that there can be no peace unless those who live in the Middle East feel safe, and comfortable and well-fed and unless there is an attempt not to repeat the old narratives but to create a new one. So I may not have agreed with all the details of Barak Obama’s words in Cairo but I wish him a Yasher Koach on their essence. The time has come to look forward and not back – to begin to build a future rather than ruminate on past injustices. Until both Israelis and Palestinians understand this, peace will not be possible. One final thought. The Baal HaTurim, a commentary on the Torah which loves to play with gematriah points out that the word shalom has the same numerical value as the name Esau. Esau, the brother of Jacob, was the founder of the Edomite people and the paradigmatic enemy of the Jewish people. Among the descendents of Esau was the nation of Amalek. This teaches us that there can be no peace unless we recognize that Esau – our greatest enemy is a part of it. So, we are collectively holding our breaths. What we need to do today is to look at the world in a new light and to reach out with a new generosity to our neighbors. We can only hope Israel’s neighbors with do the same! Shabbat Shalom