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Rabbi Karp's Sermons ... ROSH HASHANAH MORNING 2001 As
many of you know, it is my tradition on Rosh Hashanah morning to turn to
the Torah portion - the story of the sacrifice of Isaac - and to draw the
lesson of my message from it. This
year will be no different. So
let us turn to this story. This
morning I wish for us to focus on one verse found in this text; GENESIS,
chapter 22, verse 2. It
reads: “And He (“He” meaning God) said: ‘Take your son, your
precious one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah; there
you shall offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the hills that I will
point out to you.’” “One
of the hills that I will point out to you.”
What hill was that upon which Abraham was so ready to offer up his
son as a sacrifice? Well,
according to Jewish tradition, Mount Moriah is none other than Mount Zion,
the site of the Temple, in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem.[1] Indeed,
not only is it the site of the Temple, but it is actually considered the
foundation of the world. For
on the summit of Mount Moriah is found a very large rock - a rock which
our tradition calls “Even ha-Shetiyah,”
“The Foundation Stone” - which the ancient rabbis considered the base
of the whole world and its very center.
According to Tractate Yoma, when God created the world, and the
world was covered by water, God cast this stone into the midst of the
waters. It’s impact drove
the waters back and brought forth the dry land.[2]
According to another of our traditions, it was also upon this rock
that the Ark of the Covenant was set, in the Holy of Holies, in the
Temple.[3] For
those of you who have been to Jerusalem, and been on the Temple Mount, you
have probably seen the Even ha-Shetiyah,
for today it is housed in the Islamic Dome of the Rock.
According to Islamic belief, not only is this stone the foundation
of the world, but it is also the very altar upon which Abraham placed
Isaac, and it was from this stone that Muhammad, at the end of his life,
leapt into heaven. So
obviously, this site is a sacred site; sacred to two faiths. As
far as we as Jews are concerned, our connection to this site - to Mount
Moriah, to Jerusalem, to Israel - dates as far back as the events which we
read about this morning in the Torah; dates back 4,000 years, practically
to the genesis of our faith and our people. As
we gather here today to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, we cannot help but
remember that it was just about a year ago that this very site; this
sacred site for two faiths; this site which has bonded our people to the
land of Israel for the whole of our long history; became the birthplace of
what has become a long and bloody confrontation between the peoples of
those two faiths. Of
course the greatest tragedy of this conflict has been the loss of life and
the suffering, born by both sides. It
is all the more tragic when you consider that one of the Israeli terms for
Arabs is “B’nei Dodeinu,” which means “cousins.”
We are not only both connected to this site.
We are connected to each other, yet we find ourselves killing each
other. Unfortunately,
another tragic consequence of this conflict has been the distortion, and
sometimes even death, of truth, especially in the western press. All too often, the Israelis are depicted as not having a
legitimate right to the land; as usurpers who came late upon the scene and
yanked this land right out from under the native Palestinian victims, whom
they then turned on and began to cruelly oppress. Each
of us, as American Jews, at one time or another, has probably been
confronted about these inaccurate stereotypes; stereotypes of Israelis as
usurpers and oppressors; stereotypes of Palestinians as natives and
victims. And because of that,
especially in the light of the events of the past week, and the
consequences that those events may very well have for us as American Jews
and as friends of Israel in the coming months - when we begin to hear the
voices of those who will cry out, “This never would have happened to
America if it were not for our support of Israel”; voices which we are
already beginning to hear; I want to spend just a little time setting the
historical record straight. First
of all, the land of Israel has been intimately tied to the life of the
Jewish people throughout our history, as we see in today’s Torah
portion. Contrary to popular
belief, Jewish settlement did not start in Israel after the Holocaust.
Israel has a continuous history, more ancient than that of most
nations, with uninterrupted Jewish settlement on that land - that disputed
land - since the time of Joshua, 3,700 years ago.
Even when the vast majority of our people have lived in dispersion,
outside of the land, we still maintained a national language, Hebrew, and
a culture. Although the
Jews were driven out of Jerusalem with its destruction by the Romans in
the year 70 c.e., by the 9th century, a Jewish community had
already been reestablished there. By
the early 19th century, before the birth of modern Zionism,
there were already many thousands of Jews throughout Palestine.
No, we are not “Johnny-come-latelys”. It
may be hard to believe, but there actually was a time when leaders in the
Arab world were supportive of Zionism.
In 1919, Emir Faisal, son of the acknowledged leader of the Arabs,
Sherif Hussein, wrote the following words to Felix Frankfurter: “The
Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy upon
the Zionist movement... We wish the Jews a hearty welcome home... We are
working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements
complete one another.” What
about the Arabs in Palestine? What
is their history? First of
all, unlike a Jewish state, there has never been a separate Arab state in
Palestine. The region was invaded by the Arabs in the 7th
century and it was controlled from outside.
Not until modern times had Palestinian Arabs ever created any form
of separate political or social identity.
They were never autonomous. Palestinians
were never a people until recently. Indeed,
the fact of the matter is that before Jewish settlement, Palestine was a
sparsely populated, poorly cultivated, widely neglected expanse of eroded
hills, sandy desserts, and malarial marshes.
In 1867, in his book, INNOCENTS ABROAD, Mark Twain described
Palestine in these words: “... [a] desolate country whose soil is rich
enough, but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse... A
desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of
life and action... We never saw a human being on the whole route... There
was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere.
Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless
soil, had almost deserted the country.” Did
Jews usurp this hard and barren land?
Hardly! Most of the
land they purchased. Indeed
they purchased it at exorbitant prices.
Between 1880 and 1948, 73% of Jewish land had been purchased from
large land owners. Most of this land had not previously been cultivated
and was in poor condition. In
1944, Jews were paying $1,000 - $1,100 per acre for arid or semi arid
land. In that same year, rich
black soil was selling, here in Iowa, for about $110 per acre. One
of the ironies of the current Israeli - Palestinian conflict is that most
people do not know where the Palestinians came from.
They assume that the Palestinians were always there, and that is
inaccurate. The fact is that
prior to 1922, the Arab population of Palestine was in decline.
In one of the great ironies of history, it was Jewish settlement,
with Jewish development of the land, that encouraged Arab immigration from
Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq. As
the Jews built up Palestine, there was a labor shortage which created many
opportunities for the Arabs, who were poverty stricken in their native
lands. That was only
compounded by the fact that the Arabs found that life in Jewish Palestine
provided them with far better living conditions.
In 1922, the infant mortality rate among Palestinian Arabs we
19.6%. By 1939, it had
dropped to 14%. Another
bugaboo which we hear about today is the issue of Palestinian refugees.
What people do not understand is that in 1948, there were actually two
refugee problems, and not one. There
was the Arab refugee problem; those Arabs who, with the encouragement of
the leaders of the Arab world, fled Israel, despite the pleas by such
people as Golda Meir for them to stay.
But there was also the Jewish refugee problem; those Jews who were
forced to flee their homes in Arab lands; forced to flee because of
increased persecution. British
pre-1947 population figures and post-1949 assessments place the number of
Arabs who left Israel at between 530,000 and 590,000.
In Arab lands, there were some 800,000 Jews who were suffering
harsh persecution. 794,000 of
them fled, with 600,000 going to Israel.
What we have here is an exchange of populations.
The major difference is that Israel absorbed its refugees and
resettled them, while the Arab world refused to do the same for theirs. So,
as you can see, the issues are not as black and white, as good guy - bad
guy, as the media so often depicts them.
Indeed, Israel has a legitimate right to its homeland; historically
speaking, one can assuredly argue that it has a far more legitimate right
than do the Palestinians. All
that having been said, the Palestinians are not going away.
No one understands that better than Israel.
Over 20 years ago, I remember watching Dick Cavett interview Abba
Eban. At that time, Eban said
that it is unrealistic for Israel to believe that it can contain and
control a Palestinian population of over a million; that the only logical
conclusion is the establishment of a Palestinian state.
And it was but a year ago this past Summer that Ehud Barak, at Camp
David, operating under those very same assumptions as Abba Eban, offered
Yassar Arafat 93% of what the Palestinians claimed they wanted, including
a plan to share control of Jerusalem.
Arafat turned him down. By
November, at the negotiations in Taba, Egypt, Shimon Peres would up that
offer to 97%. Still, no sale. And
in the meantime, blood has been spilled.
Gallons and gallons of blood.
As we read in this morning’s Torah portion, our first encounter
with Jerusalem and the Temple mount was through an act of sacrifice.
Perhaps Abraham’s actions put an indelible seal upon the fate of
that site. For in the days of
the Temple, what would take place on that site?
The offering of sacrifices. And
still today, the site calls upon us to make sacrifices; bloody sacrifices,
human sacrifices. Abraham
brought with him up the mountain his ritual slaughter knife.
Today, the sacrifices are made with bullets and bombs, and now, it
seems, with passenger aircraft. Abraham’s
attempted sacrifice, and the sacrifices at the Temple, were in the service
of God. However, when the
lives of countless innocent civilians are placed upon the sacrificial
altar, it is hard to accept that those sacrifices are also being offered
up in the service of God, no matter how strident the religious rhetoric of
the terrorists might be. You
might say, “Well, what about Isaac?
He was innocent.” But remember, Isaac was never actually sacrificed.
God does not desire the blood of the innocent. There
is a dark force afoot in our world. Our
nation has painfully discovered the reality of it this past week.
Our brothers and sisters in Israel have been living with it, and
struggling against it for so many, so many years. Indeed, no one knows the pain that we Americans feel, no one
knows the pain that the people in New York and Washington feel, better
than our brothers and sisters in Israel.
They, too, have had to bury husbands and wives, sons and daughters,
brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, victims of conscienceless
terrorist attacks. Granted,
no terrorist attack in history has been as enormous as the attack on
America this past week; no death toll as high.
However, perhaps we need to put it into perspective.
Israel is a nation of only 6.1 million people, while we, in
America, are a nation of 276 million people.
Our population is 45 times greater than that of Israel.
For every death that Israel suffers at the hands of a terrorist, it
is as if we Americans suffered 45! Consider
the bombing of Sbarro’s in Jerusalem last month.
In that bombing, 15 were killed and 130 were wounded.
On an American scale, that would be as if 675 were killed and 5,850
were wounded! Of course, we all remember the Summer of 1996, when Israel
suffered four serious terrorists bombings in nine days, including the
attack on the Dizengoff mall in Tel Aviv.
In those bombings, 57 were killed.
That would be the equivalent of 2,565 Americans. I
am not saying that American life is cheaper than Israeli life.
Every human life is precious.
But we all know that there is a certain intimacy which comes with
living in a smaller community. How
often, we ourselves go out and about in our town, the Quad Cities, and run
into people that we know. We
run into them in restaurants, at the movies, in the supermarket. You all know what I am talking about. That doesn’t happen nearly as often in a city like New York
or Los Angeles. There are
just too many people there. What
is true of local communities is also true of nations.
When Israelis are killed or injured in terrorist attacks, for
Israelis, these people aren’t just faceless names or nameless faces.
They are friends, neighbors, relatives.
Israel is a smaller, intimate country, and every terrorist attack
impacts upon its people in a very personal way.
For God’s sake, there are fewer Israelis than there are New
Yorkers, with New York having a population of over 8 million; almost a
third again as large as Israel. Yes,
no one knows the anguish we feel today as do the Israelis, and their
hearts go out to us. Their
hearts go out to us completely, honestly, and sincerely, unlike the hearts
of some others, who express their sympathy, but whose expressions are
fundamentally lies. Harsh
words? Well, you have all seen, or at least heard of, the
sympathetic image of Yassar Arafat donating blood for the World Trade
Center / Pentagon victims. However,
there is a universe of difference between that message which Yassar Arafat
presents to the West, in English, and what he says to his own people, in
Arabic. Listen to his
statement, as reported in the Palestinian Authority’s official press:
“The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble
predecessors... the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the US Marines Did
Arafat actually say that? Remember,
unlike the U.S. and Israel, the Palestinian Authority is not a democracy. There is no freedom of the press. The press can only carry the message that the government
wishes for them to carry. How
can he say something like that? Simple.
Arafat has long viewed the American people as fools; fools who will
only pay attention to what he says in English; fools who will never take
the time and energy to translate what it is he says in Arabic to his
people. And he has been
right. For some reason or
other, we never consider what is published in the Arabic press. That is why Osama bin Laden, three weeks ago, announced in
the Arabic press that there was going to be an attack of unprecedented
proportions on America, and we were either unaware of it or did not take
it seriously. But
Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only nation in the
Middle East which shares so many of our values, has been, and remains, our
true and fast friend. Our
nation cannot afford to lose sight of that in the coming weeks and months. Nor
can we afford to lose sight of the fact that in this new, redefined
reality for America, Israel offers us far, far more than compassion and
sympathy. Israel offers us a world of knowledge about dealing with
terrorism, and most important of all, an excellent example of how to deal
with terrorism without losing your soul in the process. It
is extremely ironic that the United States, which is now screaming for
retaliation, retribution, revenge, for this recent attack by terrorists;
which is now talking of targeting entire nations who have either hosted or
supported the terrorists, is the same nation which has so readily
criticized Israel for its response to the terrorism it has suffered.
The peak of the irony is that Israel’s responses have been far
less ferocious, far more restrained, than the rhetoric we hear coming out
of Washington these days. And
that is perhaps the greatest thing that Israel can offer to us; a model of
how to respond to terrorism appropriately.
A model of how to respond to terrorism without becoming terrorists
ourselves. A model of how do
you not lose the forest for the trees; how do you remain focused on
attacking the terrorists, while at the same time limiting, if not
eliminating, civilian casualties. How
do you deal with terrorism and retain your soul? One
of my greatest fears is that America, in her grief and her anger, will
take actions which we will regret throughout history.
Do we really want to conduct an invasion of Afghanistan because one
very evil man and his terrorist organization lives there?
Do we wish to repeat the same mistakes we made in the Gulf War,
ultimately victimizing the innocent civilians far, far more than Saddam
Hussein and his government? How
broad a blood trail to we wish to cut? Israel
can teach us that it is possible to destroy the hiding place of the
terrorist without killing the innocent people who live there as well.
They have done it in the past - bulldozing homes, for example - and
we have criticized them for it, and we were wrong. Israel can remind us that if we are to attack, then we must
focus our attack on the terrorist and the terrorist alone. The terrorist is our enemy, and not the innocents among whom
he hides. Israel has done
this, and we have been brutal in our recriminations of them for targeted
assassinations, and once again, we were wrong. President
Bush was correct when he announced that a war had been declared upon us.
We are in a war against terrorism, and there is no getting out of
it. I know that some of my
Christian colleagues are calling for a non-violent solution.
Unfortunately, they do not know terrorists as we Jews know
terrorists. The events of
this past year in Israel, and the dismal failure of the peace process give
ample testimony to the harsh reality that the violence will not stop, and
can only be dealt with violently. Israel
did not want it this way. The
United States never wanted it this way, as we strove so ardently to broker
the peace process. But we
have been left with no alternative. However,
forced onto the path of war, we can still choose how
we conduct that war; how we can fight a war, yet maintain as much as
possible, our sense of humanity. In
that quest, may we prove wise enough to understand that Israel is not only
our ally and partner, but can also serve as our mentor. AMEN [1] II CHRONICLES 3:1. [2]
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 54b. [3] Tosefta, Yom ha-Kippurim 3:6. [4] Al Hayat Al Jadida, the official Palestinian Authority daily,
September 12, 2001.
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