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They Say/We Say: a Special Holiday Edition

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The High Holidays are here. It is a season in which many turn toward the hope that God will bless us with health, prosperity and peace. Peace, however, is not simply a gift; we are instructed to do our part and proactively pursue it.

"Now the Torah did not insist that we actually go in pursuit of [most other] commandments, but said: if a bird's nest happens to be before you...when you gather the grapes of your vineyard....In all these cases, if they come your way you are commanded to perform the duties connected with them, but you need not go in pursuit of them. In the case of peace, however, seek peace wherever you happen to be, and pursue it if it is elsewhere." Bamidbar Rabbah 19-27 (emphasis added).

They say: Based on the teachings of the Torah, everything the "peace camp" stands for is wrong. The land of Israel was given to the Jews by God, and should never be negotiated over or given to non-Jews. The Jewish obligation to fight for and defend the land given to us by God cannot be violated. Furthermore, we are obligated to conquer and take all of the historic land of Israel. The Jewish obligation to live in the land of Israel means that Jews who live outside the land of Israel have no right to criticize the actions of those that do.

We say: The words and teachings of the Torah and the Mishnah have been debated for millennia, and no doubt this will continue to be the case. There will always be those who will cherry-pick the words of the Torah and the Sages in order to justify their views. However, coming to these teachings with an open heart and an open mind allows us to see that the teachings of the Torah not only support the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace, but require us to pursue it.

Those who oppose peace efforts often say that the basis of our claim to the land is God's biblical promise, so Jews should not negotiate over the future of any part of that land.

The Torah tells us, in reality, that while the land of Israel was given to us by God, that gift was not absolute, and that pragmatic considerations are to be taken into account with respect to our exercise of that ownership.

We find a clear demonstration of the kind of pragmatism that is present in the Torah in Genesis 23. Here the Torah tells us that after the death of Sarah, when Abraham wants a place to bury his dead, he selects the site known as the cave of Machpelah. But what does he do next? He purchases the cave of Machpelah from its then-owners, and even insists on paying full price for it. Why does he offer to pay for what he knows was given to him by God? Because he knows, too, that his neighbors, who are not Jews, do not recognize God's gift to him of the land. Rather than insisting on his claim and simply appropriating the site or demanding that it be ceded to him, Abraham chooses the path of peace - the path that we as Jews are exhorted to follow numerous times in the Torah. This path requires him to go the extra distance to make sure that he maintains peaceful, respectful relations with his neighbors, treating their own claim to the land as valid, even if in his heart he believes that his own claim supersedes it. In other words, for Abraham and for us as Jews today, peace as a value overrides the principle of a divine promise. Ethical pragmatism overrides dogma.

An illustration of the conditional nature of God's granting of the land comes to us through Ramban, the early 13th century commentator. Ramban writes that after the flood, Noah's descendants were scattered to various places where, by chance, they became nations. What of the nations that existed in these same places before the flood? When a nation comes to sin, Ramban explains, it is only right that it lose its place and another people come to inherit the land - even if its place there was granted by God. This was the rule from the beginning of the Torah. Another example is the case with Canaan: the Canaanites lost their land because they behaved immorally. This rule, according to Ramban (citing Leviticus 18:28), continues to this day, "[God] expelled those who rebelled against Him, and settled those who served Him so that they know by serving God they will inherit it, but if they sin against God, the land will vomit them out, just as it did the previous nation". Thus, the land of Israel is promised to us conditionally, insofar as we act with morality towards God and towards other human beings.

Let's examine, too, the argument that Jews are commanded by God to take possession of Israel and to live in it, and therefore, it is forbidden to cede any part of the Land of Israel to non-Jews.

The truth is that the Torah itself makes the case that having a right to something does not necessarily mean that right ought to be exercised under any and all circumstances.

Turning again to Genesis (Genesis 13: 1-11), we learn that Abraham and Lot are finding themselves unable to get along and share the land. To resolve the conflict, Abraham offers Lot half of the available grazing land - an act whose righteousness is clear when God immediately blesses Abraham once more, and reconfirms his promise. Thus, the Torah makes clear that while God's promise of the land to the Jewish people is firm, that promise accommodates shifting land boundaries. For the sake of good relations with our kin, we are indeed permitted to give them land, even if they are not directly included in the covenant. God's promise, His gift, does not come with a requirement that we exercise our right to every inch of the land - for example, if doing so means constant conflict. The lesson of the Torah is that if pragmatic considerations of peace and justice require otherwise, such considerations prevail.

Likewise, many important rabbis state unequivocally that Pikuach Nefesh - the saving of lives - overrides the imperative of holding on to the land. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef of Shas has written a famous tshuva (legal response) citing many sources that show that trading land for peace is permissible if one can make a case that it will save lives. The main points of the case are this: The Talmud rules that the saving of a life takes precedence over all other mitzvot, positive or negative, except idolatry, murder and sexual violations. This is reinforced by numerous other commentators and texts. There are many secular sources making a good case that land for peace will indeed save lives; if that case can indeed be made, we should do so. "Great is peace, for it is equal to everything."(Sifre Numbers, 42.)

Now let's look at the argument that Jews living outside the land of Israel have no right to comment on any policies of the Israeli government.

The Jewish tradition has an exceptionally large amount to say about the obligation for one Jew to speak up if he or she sees another doing something wrong. Although our sources make clear that rebuke must be done out of love, nevertheless, it is clear that whatever power we have to speak must be exercised.

Most of this commentary is derived from one verse in the Torah, Leviticus 19:17, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your fellow and you shall not bear a sin because of him."

Both Ramban and Rambam offer commentary on this: Ramban (Nachmanides) comments on the verse above that if you do not rebuke someone who requires it, then you yourself take on their sin.

If the state of Israel is engaged in actions that risk the lives of our people, we are assuredly obligated to speak up and try to convince it to refrain, and save the lives of our brothers and sisters, no matter what the risk is to ourselves in terms of the opinion of others, our livelihoods, or even physical harms.

As we learn from Tahuma Mishpatim: "If a man of learning sits in his home and says to himself, 'What have the affairs of society to do with me?...Why should I trouble myself with the people's voices of protest? Let my soul dwell in peace!' - if he does this, he overthrows the world."

In this time of Cheshbon Nefesh, of taking stock of one's soul, and evaluating one's behavior, according to the Talmud, we stand before God not merely as individuals, but as nations. At this time, we are also, in the secular world, seeing opportunities open up for us as a people to make peace with our neighbors. The Torah commands us to depart from evil and do good; seek peace, and pursue it (Ps. 34:15), to be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace, loving one's fellow creatures and bringing them closer to Torah. Our tradition emphasizes our need to seek peace, to make peace with others - and not least, to bring honor, and not shame to God through our actions. So that people will say that the Jewish people act with justice, and that our Torah is a just document, and godly. At this time, let us remember the words of our tradition (Sifre Numbers, 42) "Great is peace, for it is bestowed on those who work righteousness, as it is said, 'For the works of righteousness shall be peace.' (Isaiah 32:17)"

Go HERE for all installments of APN's "They Say, We Say"


Prepared by Rabbi Alana Suskin, managing editor of Jewschool and board member of Rabbis for Human Rights