Shalom - Salaam
Peace in Arabic and Hebrew
D'var
Torah: Vayechi
January 9, 2009
One evening this week, for some reason, I said to Janie, let’s sign something together. We started with an old favorite - Heeney matov u-manayim. After a few bars I shifted into a song I haven’t sung for some time. The main word of the song is Shalom - peace. The other key word of the song is Salaam - peace in Arabic. The song begins Ode Yavoe Shalom Aleynu which is repeated three times. These words can be translated in two ways. In one way the words have a prayerful meaning - May peace yet come over us. The words can also be understood in a more declarative way - peace will still come over us. The fact that the word peace is sung in Hebrew and Arabic expresses our hope for peace for these two people too long in conflict. Maybe when I even suggested to Janie that we sign something, it was that this prayerful song was waiting for expression.
I pray and still want to believe that peace can come especially because the realities of this week are so painful. After walking through Mt. Herzl military cemetery last week and especially spending time at the grave of Michael Levin, and knowing the heartbreak of his parents, I am pained by the new grief felt by recently bereaved parents of members of the IDF who have fallen in Gaza.
Our Jewish tradition would have it no other way but for us to feel profound sadness for Palestinian parents who are carrying their innocent children or spouses to their grave. I do feel this painful sadness . It is right that the world cares deeply about their suffering. I also feel for thousands of Israeli residents of the south who have lived in daily fear of rockets launched by terrorists in Gaza for the past eight years. Their lives have been traumatized but the world has not cared. While Israel showed restraint which their neighbors read as weakness, the UN held no meetings to condemn the Hamas terrorist aggression against a member country. While I am filled with sympathy, I hope to hear each day that the Israel Defense Forces have totally destroyed the Hamas terror machine from top to bottom and inside out.
I could not go to Israel without visiting Yirmiyahu in his little shop in Jerusalem. I go there to buy Kippot and Tallitot and Janie goes to buy tablecloths. Going alone this year, I bought both. When we saw Yirmiyahu in the summer, he was just getting up from sitting Shivah for his brother who was killed in the bulldozer terrorist incident on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. His brother was a real tzaddik. Jerusalem is poorer for his loss. In addition to the Kippot and Tallitot and tablecloths we buy, we go to Yirmiyahu for his sweetness. He has a quick smile and always has a sort of rabbinic riddle to pose to me with a ready answer.
This time, Yirmiyahu spoke in terms of Israel striking hard in Gaza. He spoke to me about the Prophet Samuel's rebuke of King Saul when he did not deliver a sufficiently heavy blow to the enemy. I heard this sentiment from other Israelis as well. They have been living with rockets terrorizing Israeli citizens for eight years sent special delivery signed by Hamas. How many commentators have I read and heard this week who counsel from their safe and secure abodes that force never has and never will achieve peace. One such wise man spoke about Israel expressing soft rather than hard power. What could have been softer power than Israel unilaterally leaving Gaza a few years ago? The response of Hamas was not peace but terror. Had America heeded their advice in the 1940s how horrible the world would be today.
I can write nothing and say nothing that justifies the death of innocent Palestinian children and civilians. I can write and say a great deal however to justify Israel’s right to defend its own citizens from living in daily fear and trauma. When soon to be President Obama visited Sederot this past summer he said he would go to great lengths to defend his daughters if someone were firing missiles where his children slept. I hope he appreciates still the justice of Israel’s mission.
Israel is condemned by many for what is called a disproportionate response. The fourth strongest military in the world has attacked with full force a people with no real standing army. For all these years, Israel has demonstrated a disproportionate response - no response to hundreds of rockets launched from Gaza and this achieved nothing. Had Israel responded rocket for rocket, much of Gaza would be in ruins today and the death toll in this densely populated strip of land would be so much greater than the startling numbers we hear today. Israel’s mission is to weaken Hamas if not end their reign of terror to the point where they will end any desire to send another rocket or mortar into Israel. Routing out terrorists from the midst of a civilian population, a mission that Hamas calculated Israel would never attempt, not only takes power but courage and caring to minimize civilian casualties. We see Israel has the courage and I believe the caring to minimize civilian deaths. That civilian casualties have occurred we see from the forever repeated footage that is supplied by Hamas to the ever eager news outlets. In the weeks to come I believe we will learn how inaccurate and fabricated many of these reports are.
This week we conclude the Book of Genesis. The congregation will stand and proclaim the words Hazak Hazak V'Nithazek, with strength, with strength may we be strengthened more. In the final chapters of Genesis, Jacob offers final words to his sons before his impending death. To Joseph, Jacob says "Archers bitterly assailed him; They shot at him and harried him.Yet his bow stayed taut and his arms were made firm by the hands of the Might One of Jacob- There, the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel." Substitute terrorists with rockets for archers and these words echo through time. Let the bows of the IDF stay taught and their arms firm by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob.
With a display of strength, may Israel be strengthened in the years to come. With strength may peace yet come. Ode Yavoe Shalom Aleynu May peace come over us Shalom - Salaam: Peace in Hebrew, Peace in Arabic for these two people.
Shabbat Shalom
