8 — THE BULLETIN — Thursday, August 8.1991
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RTH: ISRAEL; LAND OF DISSONANCE OR
DIALECTIC
EFRAT, Israel — THROW A WELL-BEHAVED MID-WESTERNER into the gushing stream of Israeli life, not just the tourist lanes and air conditioned buses, but the Knesset chambers during a stormy debate, or a Saturday night gathering of friends over coffee where each vehemently ventilates his political and religious views, and he'll be struck by the force, the passion and the sharpness of their extreme positions.
Indeed, it is rare that oiie actually hears another to his conclusion^ in: a debate, or that ?an audience listens passively to a political spieaker. ^
Is this what life in the holy land is all about? News accounts of doom and hope on the same page, cabdrivers not just angry at the government, but ready to start a new political party the next day. ■..
On one side of the road settlers proudly and patriotically bring caravans to desolate hilhops, and opposite them an equally passionate group of demonstratiiig Ratzniks are unalterably convinced that the fuel which could ignite the next war
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(G-d forbid) are these jarringly rectangular temporary dwel-: lings.
And this is jiist a prelude to the array pf tensions that divide the country, with one form of extremism riveted agaiihst the other. A typical session of the Knesset is many decibels noiser than the average kindergarten, with virtually no person in authority with the ability to restore order. Must this be so?
This week's Torah portion introduces Us to a Biblical moment which may provide an insight into this perplexing aspect of Israeli
■ufc.^: • ,
R'eh opens with G-d placing before the Jews blessings and curses, and whether they' riskin keep G-d*s commandments or choose to follow strange gods will determine if they shall be blessed or cursed.
The Torah then instructs that having crossed the Jordan, and entered the land, the Jews shall declare the blessing on Mt. Grizim and the curse on Mt. Eybal.
How this actually shall transpire is clarified later on in Deuteronomy, Chapter 27, where we are told that six tribes shall stand below one mountain, and six tribes shall stand below the second mountain, whereupon all the tribes answer *amen' after each blessing and curse.
And the Rabbis of the Talmud, expianding on the description in Deuteronomy 27, refer to this as the Covenant of Mutual Responsibility or Guarantors {Brit Areivut B.T. Sota 27).
But who needs another covenant? Circumcision, the first covenant between G-d and Abraham, expresses the unique relationship between Israel and its G-d, reminds us that we miist be willing to endure pain and even shed blood for this relationship, and guarantees our eternity by sealing its symbol within the very organ of the propagation of our race.
Torah is the second covenant, the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai, which teaches that from this point onwards Abraham's descendants will be bound to a specific cultural heritage and to a unique set of laws and commandments, determining and coloring every aspect of their lives.
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SINOF SILENCE
From Page 5
the U.S., Canada, Europe and Israel. The amicus brief supporting Pollard's attempt to vacate his guilty plea reads like a Who's Who in America today. It is signed by such notables as the presidents of Yeshiva University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Hebrew Union College, Eli Wiesel, Leonard Garment, Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a Jesuit scholar, Moore retired Bishop of New Rev. Hesburgh.
The NJCRAC ad hoc committee does not speak for the grassroots Jewish commun-
\Vs time to remember the words of Mordechai in the Purim story. When Esther hesitated to intercede on behalf of the Jews, Mordechai told hen **lf you wish to help, fine ... But if not, salvation will come from elsewhere.^
Rev. Paul Episcopal York, and
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peace throughout the New Year. Mr. and J ......................... i Hesham Mohammed Rajeh.
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(OBCOMPOSeYOUROWNQREBTING!) I Nairn Khader, the FLO'S
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Now, after forty years in desert, the Jews are rea<|y to etiter the land^aiid they are
standing beneieithtM^m to antithetical
possibilitieis. What does this covenant add to what has already
Nearly four thousand years later, these two mountains have niaiiitained their inysteries.Mt. Grizim is soft, verdant, lush, ^live with wells and spring water, truly a blessing. —
In contrast, Mt. Eybal is histerless, dry and arid, exudiiig a harshness, exuding an unyielding harshness;
When viewing these two mountains together, defiantly different^ stubbornly retaining their opposing character, throughout the ages, they seem to awesomely resonate a truth about the people on this land.
After all, even ordinary day and night take oh an extreme nature in Israel, hardly allowing for a twilight, with day giving way to night without the preparatory mediation of a lingering sunset. Israel really only has two seasons—especially in Efrat: a surprisingly cold winter, and a blazing summer with no spring or fall to speak of.
And it*s not just a question of land and weather; the people themselves are extreme, the political spectrum ranging from either giving up all of Judea and Samiaria to the Arabs (Peflce Now), or insisting on "not one inch" (Messiah Now).
The cross section of voices and opinions in the multi-partied Knesset is amazing. Here the political parties scream to be heard, each^roup firmly convinced its political vision was given to Moses on Sinai. And even the secularists spe^k with a religious fervor, attempting to proselytize to their anti-religious ideology.
In Israel, if you stand in the middle of the road, youVe likely to get trampled!
It's a law of nature that wherever the stakes are high, the tension increases^; tempers flare, the shouting increases, and people take extreme positions.
Here in Israel life and death are part of the air we breathe, the situation is all-or-nothing. There is no room for the pareve approach. If we make it in Israel, we bring about the redemption of ourselves and the world. If we ruin this opportunity, the Holocaust has demonstrated what we can expect from the nations of the world:
Here we take total responsibility for our actions, and our destiny, a privilege and responsibility largely absent in the different lands of our exile. Everything depends on us, and since each individual senses the weight of this burden, he must become passionately involved and concerned with his nation's direction and development. His very life depends on it.
A second aspect of this covenant is the consequence of living in a country of opposite forces, creating the potential for a dialectic that eventually, miraculously, succeeds at synthesizing the extremes. Dissonance means that the two opposite ends of the spectrum are at logger-heads with each other, and are mutually exclusive; accepting the one means a total rejection of the other.
r Dialectic suggests that even two opposites caii sometimes dwell side by side, that each can learn from and become tempered by the other — and that the result can resemble a symphony much more than a melting pot, with each insisting on his own instrument, but with a synthesizing conductor who produces from the individual players a magnificent symphony.
As a religionist, I must pray as if everything depends on G-d, leaving very little room for human action. As a secularist, I must act as if everything depends on me, leaving virtually no room at all for Divine intervention. As an Israeli, I know that without human struggle, men in battle, back-breaking work — our nation would never have been born, and certainly would never have survived or flourished.
But I also know that had we only taken humanjogic into account, and the extent of legitimate, human endurance and statistics, the Zionist enterprise should have been aborted in the days of Theodore Herzl.
After all, was it not the secular Zionist leader Golda Meir who said: ForlsraeUto believe in miracles is to be a realist?.! So we do as if everything depends on us — and when it seems impossible, we rely^on Divine assistance. This is the dialectic by which we live.
And when one visits Mea Shearim or Bnei Brak, it seems s though our founding fathers have created a religious State, and when one walks along typical streets in Tel Aviv or Haifa on a Shabbat afternoon, one wonders,whether religion has any place in Israel whatsoever.
And despite the fact that no one is completely satisfied, that each often seems totally dissatisfied and would like to impose his lifestyle on the other, the sum total is a state which recognizes its unique history and eulture without sacrificing the rights of the individual to determine his own lifestyle -r a veritable symphony.
And even in the purely political realm, **Not one inch** prevents a Chamberlainesque solution that can lead to national suicide, and **territorial compromise** reminds us of the human dignity of the Palestinians and our obligations towards them as well as to ourselves. Hopefully thedialectic will create aclimate of negotiation without a negation of rights — ours or ainyone
Mt. Grizim and Mt. Eybal, a mountain of blessings and a mountain of curses. Often each sees the position of the otheras a curse and insists on uprooting it fromi the topography of the 'world. ■ ■
But our land of Israel Consists of both together, with each group ultimately answering amen to the words of the other.
Because we are linked by a common heritage as well as a common destiny, because we are each co-signers, guarantors for each other, we dare not destroy each other, or cancel each other out. We must live together with the extremes and learn the lesson of dialectic and synthesis.
This is the covenant of our land, which must ultimately unite the other two covenants of our race and our life-style.
Shabbat SMom,
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