There’s a fable of a scorpion—a very poor swimmer—who asked a turtle to carry him on his back across a river. The turtle said, “Are you nuts? You’ll sting me while I’m swimming and we’ll both drown.” The scorpion said, “Why would I do that? We’d both drown. That doesn’t make any sense.” The turtle thinks about it and agrees to take the scorpion across. Lo and behold, in the middle of the river, the scorpion stings the turtle. And as they both go down in the depths, the turtle asks the scorpion, “Why did you do that? You’ve killed us both.” The scorpion replies, “This is the Middle-East.”
Going to Israel this summer in a time of war, I had hope: that maybe Israel would win this time, that Hamas would be pressured by the cutting off of its resources, by the killing of its leaders and fighters, and by the consequences of its actions on its own people it’s purportedly sworn to protect, to enter a deal for long-term stability and peace. This hope of mine is one that is religious and spiritual. It has been my basic belief that every human being, at his or her core, is good. I believe in the words of the morning blessing, אלהי נשמה שנתת בי טהורה היא – Oh God, the soul you have instilled in me is pure. That at the center of every human being is a burning spark of godliness. My hopeful optimism was based on the tenet, that fundamentally, I believe in the light of humanity.
This summer, I was reminded that sometimes, there are those who have all but extinguished their divine spark, and for whom there is no hope.
It used to be that when Israel would enter conflict in Gaza or Lebanon, the population of Israel would be divided. The hawks would want to go in hard, and doves would want patience and restraint. This war, though, was different. There’s a new mindset in Israelis that their enemy, not the Palestinians, but Hamas and all their fundamentalist extremist Islam-skewing associates, are together an inhuman enemy, incapable of rationality, incapable of peace. Israelis now understand, that what they are dealing with is evil— people with weapons and resources, who have shown through their rockets, tunnels, and sacrifice of their own, that all they seek is destruction.
There was always something disconcerting to me about their name. The name Hamas is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or Islamic resistance movement. Together, these letters in Arabic mean “zeal” or “enthusiasm” (http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/word-of-the-day/1.608751).
And this makes sense; they are zealots for Islam their way. But, a lesser known fact— we, the Jewish people, came up with the name first and to us it means something even more appropriate.
The word חמס appears in the book of Genesis, in chapter 6, the story of Noah. God seeks to destroy all life on earth and start fresh, due to the lawlessness and corruption of humanity. The verse (6:11) reads in hebrew, וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ חָמָס. The earth became corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with חמס— with wrongdoing and evil. And, as a verb, the term means “taking by violence” and “destroying.”
In her article in Ha’aretz, editor Shoshana Kordova adds,
In a twist that further complicates the issue, the Hebrew word that parallels the name of the Islamic terror group can itself be traced back to the Arabic. Etymologist Ernest Klein writes that the Hebrew hamas is linguistically linked to the Aramaic word hamas and the Arabic word hamisa, both meaning “was hard,” as well as the Akkadian hamasu, meaning “to oppress” (http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/word-of-the-day/1.608751).
What an apt choice for a name. From what made it over here to the United States, I knew they were awful. But I could not grasp the extent of their malevolence without being on the ground.
I knew that there were tunnels and I knew about how when Israel left Gaza in 2005, Israel left homes, greenhouses, schools and hospitals, and Hamas, rather than make use of this well-built infrastructure, razed them to the ground. But I learned from Tomer Karasik, a combat engineer who has served many times on reserve duty in Gaza, that they’ve found Palestinians chained to homes and when Israeli soldiers came to unchain them, they found that those Palestinian civilians had been booby-trapped with explosives. I learned from Yitzhak Sokoloff, the head of our tour operation, that often those people Hamas executes without fair judgment as collaborators are simply those who engage in coexistence dialogue with Jews. I learned from and our tour guide and friend David Solomon that these tunnels, built with materials meant for homes, schools, and hospitals, were intended for a large scale High Holiday attack on the neighboring Kibbutzim. Not only did they intend to murder the civilians living there, they also intended to wreak havoc through kidnappings and terror. Some of these tunnels were built large enough for vehicles to pass through, and the Israelis found in many of them fake Israeli Defense Soldier uniforms and sedatives, intended to knock their victims out before dragging them into Gaza.
These people of Hamas have demonstrated time and time again that they hold no value for human life—Israeli or Palestinian—and that to achieve their goals of obliterating Israel from the map they will stop at nothing. In the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while “Israel was using its missiles to protect its children[,] Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-says-palestinian-leader-doesnt-want-peace/2014/09/29/be35c83c-47e8-11e4-a4bf-794ab74e90f0_story.html).
A good friend of mine is a regular at Kehillat Kol HaNeshama, a well-known Reform congregation in Jerusalem. He told me that like many synagogues, they used to end the last line of Kaddish, Oseh Shalom, with the words ועל כל בני אדם—and to all human beings. When praying for peace, the traditional language only requested it for us and all of Israel, and ועל כל בני אדם added the request, “for all human beings.” Recently, they switched to a different phrase, also regularly used, ועל כל יושבי תבל— “for all those who live in the world.” One day in services, following Oseh Shalom, someone stood up and said that he simply could not pray for peace for all יושבי תבל. There are some who he’s come to realize are filled with so much evil that they are beyond deserving peace, perhaps even beyond deserving life. There are those in the world who are bad and simply need to be wiped out. בני אדם, the original text, was acceptable because not every person deserves the title of human being. ועל כל יושבי תבל was just something he could not pray for in good conscience.
One of the wisest butlers around, Alfred, mentor and confidante to Batman, once said, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn” (The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Home Video, 2008. DVD.).
Like many Israelis, I am at a loss. How can this be, that there are so many human beings who have become the embodiment of evil? We don’t need to stop at Hamas to know this— there are plenty of terrorists, sociopaths, and extremist militants in this world. We know that human beings were created בצלם אלהים — in the divine image, and yet in people like those I have mentioned there is no godliness left; only חילול השם — desecration of God.
The answer, I’ve learned, is that Judaism does not believe that some people are born entirely good, or entirely evil. Part of what makes us divine is that we have a unique gift, that really gives us the power of God— that of free will, of choice, of choosing what’s right, or what’s wrong. In the Talmud (Brachot 61a), R. Naḥman ben R. Ḥisa expounds on the word used for the formation of Adam in Genesis: וייצר (vayitzar, Gen 2:7). He asks, why are there two yods (יי) in this word, when only one would be necessary? It’s because each yod stands for a yetzer— an inclination, or impulse. Rather than being formed with one or the other, we’re born with both: the good impulse, yetzer hatov, and the evil impulse, yetzer harah.
Maimonides, in his laws of Teshuvah, reminds us, “Free will is given to every man. . . . God does not force or decree upon them to do good or evil, it is all in their own hands” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Tishuvah, 5:1-3.).
Evil is not a product of God, but the potential for evil is. And it is my belief, that when a person chooses evil, over and over and over, that the spark of the divine inside gets covered with so much hardened grime that it becomes virtually unrecognizable and beyond recovery.
The question is, what do we do about evil in this world? Do we, against better logic, negotiate, compromise, and strive for peace, or do we fight and obliterate?
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The answer, I’ve found, is both. We do hold peace at the highest value. When Pinchas spears the Israelite sleeping with the Moabite, though we’re told that Pinchas pleased God in wiping out those who violated God’s law, he is told that from now on, he must refocus his efforts towards something higher. He is brought into a Brit Shalom, a covenant of peace.
Our tradition is not a pacifist one. We recognize that there are times when we must take up the sword and fight. Even our greatest teacher, Moses, killed an Egyptian taskmaster to save one of his own. And though he was criticized by other Israelites for his rash decision, nowhere are we told that he was wrong. In fact, we have a very clear teaching in the Talmud: when someone comes to kill you, get up early and kill him first (Sanhedrin 72a).
Remember that Hamas in our language refers to lawlessness and corruption? Hamas and those like Hamas indeed run military dictatorships, where “justice” is meted out with guns and without fair trials. Our tradition commands us to offer peace before going to war, except in certain cases. With those who violate the laws of the children of Noah, there can be no peace. There are certain mitzvot that form the foundation of human morality, and these laws were established after the generation of evil in Noah’s time was wiped out. These mitzvot include proscriptions against murder and stealing, and they also dictate that anyone with whom we have peace must have judges and courts of law. To ensure that evil does not run rampant and that goodness flourishes, a society must have checks and balances. These extremists in the Middle East operate above the laws of humanity and repeatedly violate that which we consider holy. For those who wish to see the world burn, for those who filled with rage and hatred, we know what we need to do.
But even though we must remove evil from our midst, we must remember to keep hope alive.
The rabbis teach, “Woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor” (Sukkot 56b). Woe to the wicked is understandable, but why woe to the neighbor? It is because in dealing with the wicked, the threat to us becomes even greater. Not the threat of their hurting us, but the threat of us ourselves changing, becoming more like them, in fighting them. Sometimes, in fighting those who have lost their humanity, or even thinking about them, we harden ourselves, and suspend our own.
Though we understand in Judaism that some wars need to be fought, we also know that higher principles must be upheld. We understand that we must value human life, that we must always seek light in others, and that we must be open to the possibility that those on the other side will reach out to us, seeking understanding and redemption.
The Psalmist implores us, “בַּקֵּשׁ שָׁלוֹם וְרָדְפֵהוּ” – seek shalom and pursue it (Psalm 34:15). And though we think of Shalom as peace, recall that in Hebrew, “Shalom” means something greater— “wholeness” that everything has come together, and goodness prevails.
In fighting evil, we cannot stoop to its level. We reject evil by removing obstacles and pursuing goodness wherever it lies waiting. We do so in several ways.
We seek wholeness by being humane. We donate to humanitarian causes that help not only Israelis but also Arab Muslims and Christians caught in the conflict. We laud Israel for and continue to support the state in sending over humanitarian relief—medicine, food, water, clothing—and in taking in for medical treatment injured Palestinians and Syrians, many who harbor ill will against Israel and Jews. We fight impulse for death with a drive for life.
We pursue peace by supporting organizations that don’t accept the status quo and that continue to fight for peace with all they’ve got. We support institutions like Encounter, which seeks to instill in us compassion and understanding by bringing Jews into the West Bank to engage in dialogue with Palestinians. We strengthen institutions like Kirkas Galil, or the Galil Circus, which teaches children—Arab and Israeli—circus skills, and in doing so, forces relationship-building and trust because their lives are literally in each others’ hands. We give to institutions like Roots/Judur/Shorashim, led by Orthodox Settler Rabbi Hanan Shlessinger and non-violence activist and journalist Ali Abu Awaad, who come from opposite ends of the spectrum to build relationships across borders through mutual understanding and empathy.
We seek wholeness by building bridges ourselves, by spreading love and understanding throughout our communities, and seeking connections with our Muslim neighbors. Perhaps, this year may be the year where we foster stronger relationships with local mosques, and share our stories and lives with those who believe differently than us.
And, we pursue peace by keeping tabs on ourselves, as we do every Yom Kippur— by taking an account not only of our actions, but of our feelings. What goes through our heads and through our hearts. Do we harbor more hate than love for the other? Do we remain jaded at possibilities for a better world, or do we fight to keep open the path for hope? Though we must remain on alert for our safety and survival, we must not let this vigilance dim our own sparks of light burning inside. Rather, we must work even harder, under evil’s gaze, to cultivate goodness, to nourish wholeness, and foster peace.
The story of the turtle and scorpion all too frequently comes to mind when I think about the matzav—the situation—in the Middle East. And every time it comes up, I must choose to reject it, and instead choose hope. Not for Hamas or ISIS or Al Qaeda but for Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs. Not for terrorists and extremists, but for those who simply wish for a better life. Not for those who embrace evil but for those who are still open to goodness. And not for certain human beings, but for all of humanity.
I supplant the images of the two in the river with the idyllic portrait painted by the prophet Isaiah: that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid. The calf, the beast of prey, and the fatling together, with a little boy to herd them (Isaiah 11:6).
This Yom Kippur, as we face our own mortality, as we face the possibilities that we all have the potential to bring light or darkness into this world, may we choose light, may we choose wholeness and may we choose peace.
May the Holy One, who makes peace in the universe grant peace for us, for all of Israel, and for all who live. Amen.
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