November 29 is the Day We Chose Life
In the never-ending debate over who has the legitimate right to the land, Palestinian activists open up our Bible to shame us. They retell the time when two women approached King Solomon to settle their dispute. To make a long story short – and it’s a story you know (I Kings) -both women had recently given birth and were recovering in the same quarters. One of their babies died and each woman claimed the living baby as her own. Solomon ordered that a sword be brought to cut that baby in half so that it could be shared. This is when the real mother cried out and consented to let the phony mother take the child. Solomon, of course, understood that the true mother would never allow her child to be cut in half. She would suffer the anguish of losing her child if that was the only way to save its life.
Palestinians assert that based on this judgement from our sacred tradition, Jews surrendered their maternal rights to the land by accepting the UN Partition Plan adopted 78 years ago on November 29, which divided the land into two entities, one for Jews and one for Arabs. The Palestinians claim rightful maternity because they would never allow the child – the land – to be divided into two. No, their land must be from the river to the sea.
Rather clever.
Except that in 1947 we were not looking to acquire land. We were fighting for our future. We were in pursuit of peace. We were longing for life.
This is our Bible, after all, so let us tell the story our way. The natural mother was willing to give up her child, not so that it would simply be whole, but so that it would have a life. A life to stumble and learn. A life of friendship and love. A life of safety. A life for its body to grow tall and its soul to grow deep. A worthy life to leave as a legacy for its own children.
That is all the founders of modern Israel wanted. That is why they and Jews around the world danced on that day in 1947. They were not cheering the acquisition of land; they were celebrating – as we will celebrate again on Shabbat, November 29 – the promise of life.
