The Sons of Abraham and October 7th

It is the first anniversary of the October 7th vicious Hamas attack on Israel. I am consumed with sadness and anger while at the same time marveling at the resilience of Israel and the Jewish people in the face of unremitting hatred and our growing isolation by some groups who we Jews have felt close to in our joint struggle for civil and human rights in the United States. I also marvel at the positive embrace of many non-Jews who in the face of the hyper-hate confronting us have reached out to the Jewish community with love and regard. Political leaders like President Biden and Vice President Harris to local community and church leaders have made strong rhetorical statements and have translated their rhetoric into tangible actions to support Israel and our Jewish community in the face of others in the United States who truly wish harm to Israel and the Jewish community. Yes, some of our friends have given us advice we would rather not have.

Israel was the one attacked on October 7. Let us not forget that. Israel has been fighting back now for a year. That war has now escalated into Lebanon against Hezbollah and Yemen against the Houthi, and once again possibly into Iran in response to the over 200 ballistic missiles recently used to attack Israel. The fighting has led to the deaths of 10’s of thousands of Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi, and Iranian terrorists who started this war. It has also led to the deaths of 10’s of thousands of civilians who would still be alive today if not for the hatred of those who hate Israel and Jews. They hate us so much that they were willing to sacrifice innocent Arab lives for the destruction of the one Jewish state in the world.

We Jews have just finished our most sacred holiday of Rosh Hashana this past week. Rosh Hashana’s traditional Torah readings on the first day are the story of the birth of Isaac and the eventual exiling of Ishmael and on the second day the Akeda story of the sacrifice of Isaac, Genesis chapters 21 and 22. I was since childhood always troubled about why the rabbis, who developed the High Holiday Machzor, or prayer book, would include these troubling and tragic stories of Ishmael and his mother Hagar being sent into the desert with nothing but a skin of water and a loaf of bread by Abraham because of Sarah’s demand that Abraham free Hagar and send her and Ishmael away so that Ishmael would not inherit with Isaac. The equally troubling story is in Genesis 22 where G-d orders Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah. Abraham agrees but then is stopped at the last minute when G-d sends an angel who tells him to sacrifice a ram instead.

Rosh Hashanah emphasizes both the sacrifice of Isaac and the expulsion of Ishmael. Eid al-Adha is the holiday for Muslims that commemorates the same sacrifice, but with Ishmael instead of Isaac, as well as the observance of the pilgrimage to the House of Allah (the Kaaba) in Mecca, which, they believe was established by Abraham. For Jews, Abraham’s perfect awe for G-d, demonstrated by his willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and banish his first son Ishmael culminated in G-d’s promise to make great nations from both of Abraham’s sons. G-d’s purpose was to establish two related but separate nations, each blessed by prophecy.

The Torah mentions that after the sacrifice, Isaac lived in a place called Beer Lachai Ro’i, where the Torah elsewhere suggests Hagar ended up. That Isaac chose to make his home with the mother of Ishmael implies that the brothers bore each other no ill will. Furthermore, according to the Torah, when the time comes to bury their father, they do so together, “Brothers at peace with each other”.

Throughout history, cooperation between the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael has been episodic. At times positive and collaborative, at times confrontational and destructive. From the time of the Arab colonization of North Africa, parts of Europe, and all of the Middle East to the shores of the Pacific Ocean Jews under Arab rule were second-class residents. Jews from Arab lands suffered under Arab rule. Yet, there were times that due to their shared ancestry, history, and culture, Jews also flourished such as during the Arab control of Spain and at times in Bagdad. While these periods of shared cooperation, collaboration, and even shared regard were rare they were significant in what was accomplished when Muslims and Jews worked together. Based on the shared fatherhood of Abraham to both Isaac and Ishmael and their shared sacrifice, two nations were promised and born. Yet over the centuries since Islam developed as a religion and national vision, there have been the writings of the prophet Mohamed in the Quran that show negative views of Jews and Judaism, as well as positive, and neutral views.

The problem often between Jews and Arabs lies in hatred generated in part by negative comments against Jews in the Quran which have been emphasized by some in the Arab Muslim world while positive and neutral comments have been ignored. This is a choice made by some in the Arab Muslim world, just as there are negative, positive, and neutral comments about Jews in Christian writings. Christians for 2000 years chose to emphasize hate rather than the shared Abrahamic vision until after the Shoah. After the Shoah, due in part to the efforts of Jules Isaac, a French Jewish historian, and author of Jesus and Israel, which argued that Christian hatred of Jews was based on a series of falsehoods and that if Jesus had lived during the Shoah he would have perished in Auschwitz. Isaac’s writings had a significant impact on Pope John the 23rd and led to massive revisions of Catholic teachings and practice regarding Jews that have in turn impacted the Protestant Christian world and ushered in a period of greater Jewish-Christian cooperation.

In the Arab world, at the end of the 19th century, two kinds of approaches developed out of Egypt. One was expressed by the Islamic Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb one of its most important thinkers that a new caliphate should be created, violence for the cause was justified, and all of the negative perspectives of the Quran on the Jews made them the enemy of Islam. The other approach was created by Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) a well-known figure in Muslim circles and beyond. Suffice it to mention that Abduh is considered the founding father of Islamic Modernism, a school of thought that called for a profound reform of the dominant attitudes of Muslims to significantly narrow the gap between Islamic values and Western thought. Abduh was prepared to borrow ideas and practices from the West such as democracy, the rule of law, educational reform, free thought and research, an improved status for women, and relations with believers from other faiths. Even though Abduh at times espoused anti-Jewish sentiments, he also focused on the positive and neutral perspectives on Jews in the Quran and was a moderate on Zionism.

Perhaps, it was based in part on Muhammad Abduh’s ideas the leadership of the UAE and the Israelis were able to begin to craft the principles that would eventually become the basis of the Abraham Accords often attributed to Trump’s Administration, but in reality, were already moving into place before Trump became president. Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, joined Egypt and Jordan in normalizing relations with Israel in 2020. Opposed to the Abraham Accords were Iran, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah, Syria, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

But under the Biden administration, Secretary of State, Tony Blinken was using the Abraham Accords and its success to convince an already interested Saudi Arabian government led by MBS, Mohammed Bin Salman Al-Saud, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to join the Accords. For two years Hamas under the leadership of Sinwar and Deif planned an extensive and brutal attack on Israel. And just two weeks before the US and Saudi Arabia were prepared to announce the beginning of talks on the Abraham Accord, Hamas with the approval of Iran launched its attack on Israel. Their goal was to strike a major blow against Israel and to also end the Abraham Accords.

On October 7 with all of its commemorations, mourning, and remembrances of all of the deaths, the sacrifices, the massive explosion of antisemitism worldwide, and above all the pain of the hostages, their families as well as the pain and suffering of Palestinians, and Lebanese who are not connected to Hamas or Hezbollah, the question must be asked of the Arab and Muslim world, from Sunni’s, Shi’ites, and Sufis. How has your hatred benefited you? Are you better off because of your hatred? There are today 22 Arab nations and 57 Muslim nations in the world. Both the Jewish Torah and the Muslim Quran speak about G-d’s promise to make great nations from the children of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac. Yet, except for the Abrahamic Accord nations, the Arab world refuses to make peace with the one Jewish nation and Palestinians refuse to understand that they cannot only have their nation on the dry bones of a Jewish nation. Israel has said over and over again, release the hostages, put down your arms, stop attacking Israel and Jews and then there will be peace together. To paraphrase Golda Meir, when Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel and the Jews then there will be peace. It is up to both the Arab world which has yet to sign on to the Abraham Accords and the Muslim world in general, you can stop the carnage by choosing to stop promoting hatred and by embracing the hope of our joint father Abraham to see the children of his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael at peace.