Walking by the way…
Can’t we do better?
The plaintive plea was from a dear friend, an ardent supporter of Israel, despairing at the more than six months of war in the Middle East, at the immense human costs, lives lost, homes destroyed, livelihoods upended, and the troubling escalating violence in the territories.
Even as Israel suffers from the trauma of 10/7, even as it mourns the victims of the heinous attack, as it struggles to regain stability and security, there is growing dismay about the activity in Judea and Samaria, so much so that a group of IDF retired generals traveled to the region to investigate, returning with a scathing indictment of Israel’s actions there.
It ran page one in the NY Times this week, along with a photo of a road well traveled by Palestinians in the area, lined with dozens of blue and white Israeli flags flapping in the wind. It was a flagrant assertion of Jewish power and sovereignty and a clear message to its Palestinian residents that this is not their home.
They are not welcome here.
And so my thoughts turned back to my experience in Israel earlier this summer, spending a week in conversation with scholars, rabbis, writers, and others at the Shalom Hartman Institute, about the ongoing war and its consequences. And especially one lecture, where the speaker evoked that very image in her remarks, relaying how a young man bragged proudly about planting Israeli flags along those roads.
So I returned to my copious notes, and pages of handouts filled with biblical text, with philosophical and historic insights, with ethical and moral precepts, looking for answers.
Maybe not answers, but guidelines, a road map, for how to find the way out of this quagmire.
How to be better.
Teachings about our shared humanity, that each of us is created in the image of Gd, with a divine spark within, that can light the way to seeking to do good, to illumine the world.
That can lead us to our calling to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with Gd.
And the obligation to remember, once we were slaves, and now we are free, that we are commanded to welcome the stranger, not cast him out, disdain him, destroy his home, desecrate his fields, disenfranchise him, displace him.
That the land of Israel was promised to the Jewish people, but the state of Israel was founded on the principles of democracy , of freedom, of equality, of justice.
That it was established to provide a safe haven for Jews, where Jews could control their own destiny, but still be a sovereign nation, a democratic, independent state, for all.
And that, now and to the end of time, we need to look beyond ourselves and see the other. A meaningful session on Martin Buber’s treatise I and Thou, moved me, as I sought to find a road out of my despondency.
It is as simple, and as complicated, as opening our eyes, to see others in their humanity, to let them know they are seen, to listen to their stories, to open our hands, to open our hearts.
It is what we, each of us, is obligated to do, both inspiration and aspiration, especially as we are in this month of Elul, when we are asked to think deeply about who we are, and who we aspire to be.
And how we walk in this world.
And seek to do better, be better, in the year to come.
May it be so.
