Lamentations Rabba, the Rabbinic exegesis and amplification of Lamentations — the sad and haunting elegy we read on Tisha B’Av — begins with an odd and compelling comment. The opening words of the scroll are “Eichah yashvah vadad/Woe is she who sits alone.” The Rabbis however read the etymological affinity of the opening word to the shorter word “eich/how” in order to picture God asking the question: “How do people mourn so that I may learn how to mourn?” Citing verses from the Prophets and Psalms as prooftexts, the midrash relates the way in which God’s angelic court teaches God how to mourn. This is the cosmic shift which signals the beginning of Exile: God’s learning to mourn. The God of the Rabbis is not the avenging God of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The God of Exile is a more humble God, who learns to sit, and cry, and grieve.
My thoughts have often turned to this wonderful midrashic passage over the past week, as we edge towards Tisha b’Av, and Israel edges toward — what? Tisha b’Av commemorates a string of tragedies which, according to traditional sources, were brought about by Israel’s failures — the infidelity of the Golden Calf, the lack of trust of the spies, the idolatry of the First Temple, the baseless hatred of the Second Temple and on. And yet, it is God who learns how to mourn. It is God who contracts and humbles God’s self. Standing on the edge of Canaan, Moses warns the people of Israel. “Beware that you do not become so proud that you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’” (Deut. 8:17) The facts of the current situation are at once so crystal clear and so helplessly muddled. Hizbullah crossed an international border, killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others. This was a blatant act of war. Israel, under International Law has the right to respond in self-defense, to respond militarily and to ensure the safety of its soldiers.
I am not a general nor a son of general. I do not claim military expertise. Perhaps the only way to wipe out Hizbullah is to destroy villages, uproot 500,000 people, kill more than three hundred people, the majority of whom it seems are civilians. It is not however generals to whom we look for moral guidance. The generals must have known that the civilians would be killed and uprooted. That Israel would, in the end, intentionally or not, kill innocent civilians, five year old girls and ninety year old men. The generals must have told the political leaders, who by rights should have said: There must be another way. We are stronger in our ability to figure out solutions which don’t involve killing innocent people.
Yet, it is the path of war, the path which led to the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon which they chose. Unlike the God of the Sages, Israel has not learned the power of humility — the humility to say: there is no clear answer. Perhaps there is no acceptable answer. We won’t react just because we can. Just because we only have a hammer, it doesn’t mean that everything is a nail.
Aryeh Cohen is Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the University of Judaism.
Comments (5)
Amen.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this confluence — what’s happening in the world-at-large, and what’s happening in my interior/liturgical world — so I really appreciate this post. Thank you for this.
Just as Tisha B’av is a time of muddled emotions - so has this time of military confrontation between Israel and enemy factions of her neighbors become a time of muddled emotions. I find justification such as you described above very unconvincing (which it seems you also seem to be questioning):
“Israel, under International Law has the right to respond in self-defense, to respond militarily and to ensure the safety of its soldiers.”
I don’t want any more bombing, but seriously, on this solemn day, what can make it stop. Is this sinat chinam? Is this an act of hate? Is there any other way, right now, to protect Israel? In the end, will this incursion cause more deaths or fewer - on both sides of the conflict.
Sometimes inaction is the only legitimate form of action.
“The generals must have told the political leaders, who by rights should have said: There must be another way. We are stronger in our ability to figure out solutions which don’t involve killing innocent people.”
This is fatuous and irresponsible. Judaism does not teach to deny reality, nor does it shrink from hard choices. The Torah repeatedly gives examples of having to choose war for survival, such as wiping out the Amalekites. Through Samuel, God makes it clear to Saul that his unwillingness to see the war through all the way made him unfit to be king. Our sages discussed what is to be done if two people are lost in the desert with only enough water for one. They decided one should live and one should die, which is better than both dying.
Our sages would not recognize what you are saying as Torah. They would say, “what are you, meshuggenah?”
If you think there is another way which does not have civilian casualties, present it. In detail. And I mean a REALISTIC plan which unflinchingly acknowledges the reality of Israel’s attackers. If you can’t do that, stop the self-righteous platitudes about things you refuse to understand. There have been serious critiques of the air campaign, but that’s not what you are making.
This isn’t “Radical Torah.” This is knee-jerk head-in-the-sand Torah.
‘For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me’ (Lam. 1:16)
The only reasonable and healthy response to this war is to well up with with tears. Cry because soldiers fire weapons at civilians and at each other. Cry because each funeral is somebody’s mother, father, son, daughter, niece or nephew, regardless of what side of the ‘Good Fence’ they are on, or who started what.
Dr. King once said ‘It is no longer a question of violence or non-violence; it is a question of non-violence or non-existance.’ If we cannot live in a peaceful Middle East, Jews and Arabs alike will inevitably cease to exist.
So quit assigning blame or questioning who’s response was justified or overwrought and pray for peace.
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