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| Rabbi Cantor Alison Wissot |
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| Cantorial Soloist Mark Britowich |
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Moral Dilemma, The Aggressive Impulse and Peace
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Moral Dilemma, The Aggressive Impulse and Peace
High Holy Days 2007 Temple Judea
Rabbi Karen Bender
There is a story about a soldier who is having a casual conversation with a cannibal. The soldier boasts that he had killed 70 people in a battle. “How could you eat 70 people,” the Cannibal asks the soldier, who replies, “we don’t eat people.” The cannibal says, “you kill people and don’t eat them—what barbarism!”
Dear friends, I come to you tonight to begin a conversation about barbarism and war, about moral dilemma and Iraq.
I won’t be the first Jewish leader to speak of war. Indeed ancient prophets of Israel spoke of the destiny of nations. Jeremiah debated the false prophets as he called upon Israel to stop the losing war of Babylon, amazingly, literally where Bagdad is today. Rabbi Israel Salanter said, “The other’s physical well-being is my spiritual responsibility.” Judaism mandates a universal caring for humanity. Our ideals are actualized via politics and speaking out.
I imagine some of you will concur with my message today; others among you will disagree. But I would hope you would support my speaking on the subject, for silence would suggest that religion has nothing to say about war. And that is not true. As you would expect, I speak from my conscience as I understand the ideals of Judaism.
OTHER THAN MICE, OURS IS THE ONLY SPECIES THAT KILLS ITS OWN KIND FOR REASONS OTHER THAN FOOD AND HUMANKIND FACES A PERENNIAL CHOICE AS TO WHETHER MAN WILL TAME THE BEAST OR THE BEAST WILL OVERTAKE THE MAN.
Humankind has a yetzer, an inclination towards violence, conflict and domination. That is why the very first narrative in Torah following the Garden of Eden story is a murder, Cain killing Abel, showing as paramount for civilization the need to contain the aggressive impulse. The first moral admonition in the bible is thus that we are our brother’s keeper, yet even in our time we don’t understand.
Did you hear what happened last week in Dallas? You know that Texas allows concealed weapons. So a man walks into Rosh Hashanah services at Temple Emanuel carrying a gun, which he accidentally drops while rising for Avinu Malkeynu during services, shooting his 42-year-old daughter in the foot and injuring two others. This event truly lowers the bar on tonight’s prayer service, which will apparently be considered a smashing success so long as no one gets shot. But seriously what does it mean that a man feels a need to bring a weapon to synagogue. Some Texans believe that you’re not a real man unless you carry a gun. And one of the questions I am raising today is what it means to be a man, a human being.
A few years ago I was eating outside with my kids at the Universal City Walk. As we were clearing our plates we noticed an enormous, black cockroach on the ground. My valiant 5 year old son, called out, “I want to kill it.” “We’re at his house, let’s leave him alone,” I said, and began to walk away. As we were leaving my son begged, “Please let me kill it, please, I want to kill it.” “No, let’s go,” I said. He ran back and stomped on the insect repeatedly. He won the war, mission accomplished. “Why did you do it Josh?” “I had to,” he explained, “I had to kill him before he hurt us.”
John Steinbeck understood the instinct, the yetzer of aggression, in his book Of Mice and Men, a novel serving as commentary on the obscure and tragic phenomenon that other than mice, human beings are the only living creature on the face of the earth that kill their own kind for reasons other than food.
We seem to unconsciously accept as fact our violent urges, and that is why we are neither surprised nor disturbed when war and conflict abound. Consider the unbelievable number of wars going on in the world right now: Iraq, Darfur, Congo, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon, the War on Terror, to name just a few.
We are great arms dealers too. As citizens we don’t even question how the huge number of weapons that we sell are used. Business is business. And one of the business ventures of humankind is large scale killing.
The war in Iraq is a clear example of our succumbing to yetzer harah, the bad inclination. War of this type is sustained because of the craving for violence of the few and the fear and cynicism of the many. If you assume the worst, then the reason we went to war was for vengeance, domination, greed and to distract a public from a war on terror that seemed unwinable. Many would argue that the war was justified on false assumptions.
But let’s assume the best, that President Bush was an idealist. That he dreamed of bringing democracy and freedom to a nation oppressed by a vicious dictator. Kuddos to the president for eliminating Saddam and for having a dream of democracy and peace. Had the Iraqi people celebrated us, as the experts had predicted, had they welcomed a democracy there, we would all be delighted Therefore its not right to demonize the president when in fact he could have been right. But like Don Quixote, he dreamed the impossible dream and kids are dying now for an invisible windmill.
It is a waste of energy at this stage to be angry about the decision to invade. It would be like resenting your parents for mistakes they made years ago. If you want to be angry at the president, be angry for what is happening now. For a stubbornness that perpetuates war.
How dare the administration propagate such violence. And how dare we allow it as we sit by and say nothing when we know in our hearts and our census that something is terribly wrong. We allow a war to continue despite the fact that most Americans don’t believe in it.
I recently shared a meal with an old mentor, my favorite high school teacher. She noted that when she was a child, the banter around the dinner table was about moral dilemmas, not about money and things and how to get ahead. Not about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and Miss Teen USA.
What would it take for our generation to shed its apathy? Could we sit at our tables and ask questions, pursuing moral dilemmas instead of letting them wash over us. It’s time to begin a new conversation around the dinner table about Iraq, a Jewish conversation in that it is conducted through a prism of moral dilemma, like virtually every page of the Talmud. Rigorous discussion, dynamic debate, agonizing over life and death. And it should be based upon real data.
Like the fact that over 27,000 American soldiers have been seriously wounded; almost 4000 are dead. At least 50,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, some say over 100,000, since we invaded. Over 2 million Iraqis have been displaced inside of Iraq. About 160,000 American kids are in Iraq fighting.
Incidentally, the vast majority of those kids are not named Goldberg or Bernstein or Stern. No, most of them are called Smith or Gonzales or Jones III. Now, because we Jews are underrepresented as fighters there, especially when contrasted with our over-representation in politics and power in this country, our community bears a special responsibility to critically examine whether we continue to expose these kids to harm.
Moral dilemma: We worry about looking strong in the Arab world, but is anyone going to have the courage to admit we made a mistake in invading in the first place? And the lack of concern we showed the people and culture there from the beginning.
Moral dilemma: What does it mean to invade and now occupy a foreign country that is not threatening your borders because you believe it is your right and role to impose your superior culture and values upon them?
Moral dilemma: Having dismantled Iraq’s infrastructure, what obligations do we have? Do we stay there despite the death toll? Do we force them to subdivide into three countries as was done similarly in former Yugoslavia, or do we leave and allow them to fight it out amongst themselves?
If you have ever been violated by violence then you know how awful it is. Actual violence is worse than the fear of its potentiality or eventuality, no matter to whom it is happening. Killing should be a last resort. And because of the horror of it, the question of whether it is the only option left needs to be revisited constantly, not as a strategic move, but as religious necessity.
As we consider the moral dilemmas of Iraq, we ought to heed Margaret Mead’s warning that, “It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.”
Moral dilemma: Some argue that while the invasion of Iraq was unjustified, that it has subsequently become the front line of the war on terror. If so, what does it mean that most months 2000-4000 Iraqi civilians are killed as we wage a war there that has nothing to do with them. They are losing about as many innocents many months as we lost one time on 9/11. If civilians are dying in Bagdad so that we don’t have to die in Manhattan, is this right?
Are we really safer anyway. Has this war protected us from terrorists? Last week General Patreas testified to his uncertainty concerning this. Has Al Qaeda been quieted? Some argue that Osama’s videotape proves that we “live in a dangerous world” and that the war on terror is taking place in Iraq. I would say that Osama’s videotape proves that Osama and radical Islam are alive and well and that the Iraq war is not helping to make us safer.
Moral dilemma: what if there were a consensus that more troops in the immediate future would enable a victory and peaceful withdrawal—should we support that?
Moral dilemma: if we are going to stay in the war, then shouldn’t there be a draft? Unless we protest this fruitless conflict, shouldn’t all American youth be random candidates to fight it? I say yes to that. Bernstein and Goldberg should join Gonzales and Jones III. It is un-American and un-Jewish to let the poor and powerless die for the thirst of conquest and political fantasies of the wealthy and powerful. If we stay, there should be a draft, not a mercenary army, where the poor are sent to die, and illegal immigrants are made legal so that they can go and fight instead of us. Had we had a draft, we would probably all be out in the streets protesting this war.
One temple member, Teena Silver, has been deployed near the border of Iraq and our prayers go out to her and her family. A recent email from her reminds us that soldiers are real people: “Dear Friends & Family, …Life here at Camp Arifjan is hot and overwhelming. There is a lot of anxiety amongst the soldiers going on missions, hoping they make it through…We have some injuries, but everyone is still alive. We drove around…with [up]armor and cracked windows…each crack seemed to tell its own story.”
She continues, “It is very hard for me at this time…the first year that I won't be traveling home for the high holidays…know that I am thinking about your kindness and asking forgiveness for all the times I have not been a perfect friend, sister, niece, or daughter.”
Moral dilemma: What does it mean that we are spending billions in Iraq to stop terror, while so little is being done, comparably, for homeland security except wiretapping muslims and some people who look like them. Our vulnerable ports; unexamined cargo, not only in ships but the airliners as well, to give just a few examples.
Moral dilemma: 200 million US dollars are spent in Iraq every single day, while 36.5 million Americans live in poverty , over 13 million of them children, the highest rate in the industrialized world and 47 million Americans lack health insurance.
What is the cause of our tolerance of this war. Is it apathy? Or a fear that can fool us into justifying aggression?
I have asked people in our community if they are in support of the war. Almost all say no. When I ask if they have spoken out, most say that they have not. When I ask why, they answer, “People are much more passive than we used to be. We have other things to worry about, like surviving financially.”
One person said to me, “To stop the war in Iraq and make a difference, you would have to quit your profession. The task is so great.” I am concerned, my friends, that we feel powerless to say no. Please remember that Margaret Mead also said, “Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
I once asked my grandmother, a German Zionist who was involved in founding the State of Israel, what they were thinking in the 1930’s in terms of the future of the Arabs living in their surroundings. She said, “Darling, we were just trying to put food on the table.”
Subsequently, I participated in a formal dialogue with Protestant German university students. My partner in dialogue asked about my family history. After I told her that my grandparents had fled Germany but that my great-grandparents hadn’t survived, she explained that she had asked her grandparents numerous times if they had helped Jews during the Holocaust. She said, “After years of questioning my grandmother finally answered, “Darling, we were just trying to put food on the table.”
It’s not new for ordinary citizens to tolerate government wrongdoing because we are busy making a living. Survival is core to human character.
It is time to fight the aggressive inclination and to embrace tzelem elohim, living in G-d’s image. How can we turn our focus at the dinner table from concern with how to get ahead and how to succeed to moral dilemmas and how to heal the world.
Albert Einstein said, “It is the duty of us Jews to…become soldiers in the fight for peace.” And the Midrash states, “Even on the threshold of war, we Jews are bidden to begin…with peace…”
My friends, I have spent day and night considering the moral dilemmas and I promise you that it’s a crime that our youth are dying in vain. We need to get out of Iraq.
It can’t be the case that the purpose of these holy days is so small scale that all we have to do is evaluate our conduct on a personal level. We don’t come together on these holidays so that G-d can tell us to apologize for our wrongdoing, stop cheating, betraying, lying, gossiping, stealing…only to neglect the fact that as a nation we are killing. No, if G-d could speak to us today the message would surely be: STOP KILLING. STOP FIGHTING. MY CHILDREN PLEASE MAKE PEACE.
This is the 21st century. To allow war to be the dominant theme of our time is tragic and unnecessary. It is unthinkable that we allow this to happen and that we don’t stand up and say stop. If we don’t commit to taming the horror of man’s brutality then we will never rid the world of it. We have an aggressive impulse but it is not our essence. It is not what we were meant to be. We need to hear Judaism’s call to be committed to peace so that ultimately we move away from war.
Some will use the word naïve to criticize those of us who are against the war, perhaps because they believe that greed for power or land or religious zealotry is so overwhelming and beyond control that we have no choice. They might say that we have to stomp out the cockroach, as it were, before he hurts us, regardless of whose home he is in. Those who label peace-seekers as naïve, are collaborating with the impending doom of humanity.
But does the rabbi know enough about world affairs to speak on this topic? What does she know of military strategy. I am just a Jew. I know I am neither a neo-conservative think tanker nor an architect of liberal policy. No, I am just a Jew with a prayer book, a prayer book that says Shalom 14 times in this Kol Nidre service alone.
Let’s ask ourselves: do our ancient words have any value? Are our prayers childish fantasies or convictions? The machzor in your hands is a blueprint for our ideals and the world that we want to create. In Jewish thought Shalom is not a trend, like the peace sign; it’s an earth-shaping value around which everything else revolves. We’ll never see it unless we believe it. The prayer book tells us to believe it. That is the leap of faith and imagination that Judaism demands: to visualize the world that you want to have. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the world you’ve got.
Write an email and a postcard to leaders in Washingdon D.C. Go to a rally and take your children to one and see how your life changes.
A few weeks ago my son called me to his room at bedtime. He pointed to spider on the ceiling above his bed. “Can you please take it outside?” he asked. I said, “Since neither of us can reach it and I am terrified of spiders, you have two choices, honey. Either go to sleep and let the spider do its thing or let me kill it. My son sat down with his face in his hands and said, “this is a very hard decision.”
I took a deep breath. Talk about a moral dilemma. My 5 year-old cockroach-stomper had become a 7 year-old spider-rights-advocate. How could I stifle, how could I undermine his moral uprightness. So I used his pokeman card and a cup, and screaming, escorted Charlotte outside.
What happened to that 5 year-old boy who insisted on killing a bug, that he became that 7 year-old child who insisted on saving one? The two impulses within us, for aggression and compassion, are strong. If my son could train the impulse in two short years, imagine what we could do.
Being human means taming the need to fight and redirecting that urge to create peace. You came here tonight because you are not apathetic. That’s why you come here every year. Let’s conquer our impulse for aggression instead of conquering other peoples. Let’s say no to war, let’s say no to violence. Together, let us lift up our voices, crying out for hope and peace.
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Moral Dilemma The Aggressive Impulse and Peace.pdf
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