Page 4 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, July 28, 1983
World-Nadonal
M-T
Rabbi Barak
. -By RABBI MOSES J. BURAK
Question: I have been aslced: Is the Torah I racist? —Stan Krivy, North Yorl(,Ont.
Any one who opens his Bible and reads the
i opening chapters of Genesis soon learns that 1: there is no room for racism in Holy Writ. Adam ;: is the father of all humanity. The heroes and
ii the villains, the men I of courage and the
cowards, the strong I and the weak, the I swift and the slow — 1; they are all descend-\ ants of Adam.
Later, when the I flood destroyed the I whole world except { for Noah and his ; family, there is a new : beginning. But, once i again, all the nations that fill the world are the : descendants of one man, Noah. While we Jews ; refer to Abraham as the father of our nation, : the Talmud, in Tractate Nedarim, 31A, does i not hesitate to remind us that we are also : descended from Noah. We are part of the ; Semitic family of nations who arose from Shem, : the son of Noah.
If Jews became something special, it was
: because they followed Abraham in defending monotheism with their lives. Since one God is the Creator of all mankind, all people are children of God. All men, if they are equal must be treated by one standard.
This equality of the sons of man is stressed in some unusualplaces. Thus, in the passage "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,", in Exodus Chapter 21:24, there is a great democratic principle, as Prof. Moshe Green-berg reminds us. It means that one man's eye is no more important than another man's eye, regardless of whether he is white, black, red, or yellow.
Only a Torah that is not racist could proclaim such a doctrine of equality: one man's eye is as important as anotlier man's eye. This is carried even a step farther when the Almighty opens the eyes of pagans and they see divine visions. The result is that the Torah opens its pages to Balaam, bringing us his sweet words even though the man was a despicable character.
The Talmud, in Tractate Baba Batra, 15B, gives us a whole list of such men: ''Seven prophets prophesied to the heathens, namely, Balaam and his father, Job, Eliphaz the Temaninte, Bildad the Shuhite 2iopher the Naamathite, and Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite."
The heathen prophets were narrow in their views. But the prophets of Israel felt for other nations. Thus Jeremiah, in Chapter 48:36 says: "Therefore my heart moaneth for Moab like pipes. . . ." There is the heart of a prophet of Israel, and he learns never to seek mercy, the way the Almighty wants it.
Nineveh capital of Assyria, a city noted for its wealth, whoredom, and idolatry, is a city about which God worries, and therefore the prophet Jonah is sent to bring it a message.
Theheartof the matter is this: great gifts of intellect when given a man must be used to Iielp others. He who is cleverer and wiser than another cannot trample on the lowly one. On the contrary, he must carry liim on liis back, to safety and security.
Special police task force to curb Orthodox violence
JERUSALEM [JTA] — The Jerusalem police have set up a special task force to cope with growing violence on the part of ultra-Orthodox Jews opposed to archeological diggings in the City of David, just outside the Old City walls.
The task force was created on orders from Yehoshua Caspi, commander of police in the southern district who named Jerusalem police cliief Rahamin Komfort to head it.
Caspi announced that Komfort has been relieved of all other duties so that he can give his full time and attention to
disorders in the religious neighborhoods of the city, notably the Mea Shearim quarter.
The special unit was established after fire severely damaged the office of archeologist Meir Ben Dov in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. Police said it was a clear case of arson and suspect that religious zealots were responsible.
Caspi warned t that if the Mea Shearim residents continue to violate the law and throw rocks, the police will use "a very strong hand" to apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to trial.
Scout jamboree promotes goodwill
[Cont'd, from page 1]
and wine for the Sabbath.
Saturday morning Shabbat prayers were held at the jamboree, and on Sunday, chaplains conducted Christian religious prayers.
The Israeli scouts were present for both services. "We decided it would be more respectable if we share not just what the Jews have, but that which can be found in other religions," one member of the contingent said.
Prior to the jamboree, the Israeli scouts stayed with Jewish host families in Calgary. Their hospitality was arranged by Drew Steffenberg and Esther Silver of the Calgary Jewish Community Centre.
"We never expected to be treated so warmly by the Jewish community ... We felt very much at home," Yeftah Kerem, 25, one of the Israeli volunteer scout leaders, said.
After the jamboree ended, the Israeli scouts flew to Montreal, once again living with Jewish families for two days. Nat Rosenberg and Steve Salonim, both scouts, provided hospitality for the Israelis.
The group then visited a Peterborough, Ont., Boy scouts camp and proceeded on to Toronto, staying in several Jewish homes. The Israelis were hosted in Toronto by Norman and Margo Grosbein, • once active scouts; TevBossin, area scout commissioner of Downsview; and Margo and Robert Engel. (Mr. Engel is national trainer for the Boy Scouts of Canada.)
Before heading back to Israel on Aug. 10, they will visit Niagara Falls and many Boy Scouts camps in the U.S.
Many of the Israeli scouts described the jamboree as a ''once in a lifetime experience." But they noted that there are major differences between Israel's and other countries' scouting movements.
'*In Israel we are more of a youth movement and we are not run by adults," one boy. pointed out. He added that scout achievement in Israel Is done on a group level and not on a personal level.
Another Israeli participant noted that many scouting activities in Canada involve „ water-based sports, such as fishing and canoeing, and are uncommon in his country.
"Rafting is done to a smaller degree but it is more popular to have training on poles and ropes and building campfires," he said.
Like scouts everywhere, the Israelis perform good deeds. These include raising money for various charities, planting trees, and helping in auxiliary groups of the Magen David Adorn, ^ Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross.
Hiking, camping and other outdoor skills are supplemented in Israel by instruction in the history of the people and the nation of Israel.
Israeli scouts are organized into tribes, which in turn aredivided
A bora for the jamboree
into troops and patrols and separated into three major age groups: Cubs or Brownies 8-10; Scouts or Guides 11-14; and Seniors 15-19 years of age.
In the first two age groups, there are sepa-
rate units for boys and girls, but at the age of 15, the units merge into one co-ed group.
One Israeli participant ait the jamboree stressed that he saw very few co-ed scouting groups from other countries and
found it unnatural to put a "fence" between boys and girls.
The Israel Boy & Girl Scouts Federation was founded in 1953. It now includes 35,000 Jewish boy and girl members, 10,000 members of the Arab^ Scout SchooHng Association, and many Moslem, Catholic, Orthodox and Druze Scouts.
Sea scouts are another aspect of Israel's scout program and can be found hi Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Ashkelon, Tiberias and Acre. Both boys and girls participate in rowing, seamanship, sailing, knot-tying, navigation and metereology.
The Israeli scout program focuses on pioneering and settlement rather than environment.
At the age of 18, scouts can go to the army as scout groups and spend 12 months in a kibbutz or a new settlement town by joining the Nahal section of the Israel Defence Force. They combine actual military training with time spent on the settlement or kibbutz an^ thereafter complete strictly army service.
Scouts can also postpone army service for a year to work with new immigrants in a development town helping with their social problems and building new scout tribes there. After the year, boys must then complete the three years of military duty while girls do their two years of army service.
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