Parshat Devarim
by Rabbi Avi Billet
As the history of the Israelites in the wilderness is reviewed in Devarim, an interesting trend is presented. The nations of Eisav, Moav and Ammon are treated as closer than brothers with Israel.
In each original story of Eisav and Lot (father of Moav and Ammon) there happens to be a word that has dots over it, with the common theme perhaps being that while the real story is not so nice, the Torah is trying to be polite about it.
In Lot’s case, as the child Moav was conceived, we have the word “U’vkumah” – expressing Lot’s lack of awareness of his daughter’s incestuous choice with him, due to his being drunk. Some suggest he was actually quite aware, as hinted by the wink the dots send our way.
Eisav’s threat to kill Yaakov are thrown to the wind when he greets his brother with a kiss after over 30 years apart. The Midrash and comments on the dotted word “Vayishakayhu” – and he kissed him – indicate the kiss was far less innocent than it seemed, that he meant Yaakov harm.
In sum, each word is harmless, but the dots indicate that something sinister lies beneath the surface.
And yet Moshe tells the people in our parsha that these people, their descendants, were to be treated very nicely by the conquering army of Israel. Why?
We can argue that the children of Lot were harmless – what their father did bears no reflection on them. But there’s an insincerity in all three nations that strikes God the wrong way. “I hate Eisav” says God in Malachi 1:3. Moav is in disfavor in Midrash Aggadah Bamidbar 24, where it is noted that in the end of days, God will judge Moav for their role in the plague that killed 24,000 Israelites, as Balak took Bilaam’s advice to set up brothels, instructing the Midianite women not to service the men they entice unless the men agree to worship idols - making their entrapment victims guilty of two capital offenses! [Kli Yakar notes that Ammon is not really involved in these events, and yet is somehow inexplicably thrown in with Moav.]
The respect we are to give to them teaches that the Jewish people have the responsibility, as well as the innate ability, to forgive. Even those we hate. Because Eisav has a backstory of how he was hurt, and Moav has a backstory of how they became adversaries of Israel.
It’s very hard. Every time there is a terrorist attack in Israel, especially in a home, on Shabbat, my own feelings of rage lead me to think and express ideas which are not pretty. It usually takes someone living in Israel, who reminds me of context, of facts on the ground, of reality, to remind me that the situation is not as black and white as I see it. And that jumping to whatever conclusions my emotions lead me to has no practical side to it.
It’s hard, but the reality dose is important.
I don’t forgive individual terrorists or terrorist funders and supporters. But to suggest any narrative has a simple solution is simply naïve.
In many ways the Jewish people have moved on from past hatred. After two thousand years of hatred, many Christians are the biggest supporters of Israel and the Jewish people. Israel has diplomatic relations with Germany, and grandchildren of Nazis are even proud Jews, some of whom serve in the IDF. Last year Bibi Netanyahu released a video claiming he cares more about Palestinians than their leaders care about them, as Israel regularly sends food, medicine, supplies, aid, etc, while Palestinian leaders abscond funds and use supplies to fill terrorist coffers.
I don’t understand the concept of Sinat Chinam (baseless hatred), which is ascribed as the reason for the destruction of the Temple. Hatred is based on a lie, a false pretense, or a misunderstanding.
On the Talmudic text (Yoma 9) that discusses baseless hatred, Netziv explains (Meromei Sadeh) it as the kind of hatred that leads to murder.
If murder often has a motive, it isn’t baseless, even if unjustified. So perhaps the “baseless” could be reinterpreted to the modern term “random” – just because. In other words, it is a kind of “shigaon” – a mental illness. Those who randomly kill others, in a movie theater, in a shopping mall, at a Friday night dinner, are all motivated by some craziness that justifies their action in their own minds. So murder is certainly an extreme.
But the Netziv explains the "baseless" hatred as an errant thought-process: “When the person sees his friend committing a sin, he doesn’t judge it saying 'the person is motivated by lust or desire,' (which might excuse the behavior as a fall to weakness) but 'because he is anti-God and deserves to die.'” By and large, the Jewish people are not vigilantes, killing all the sinners. And while I personally have no sympathy for murderers or terrorists, all of whom, in my view, deserve to die the minute they take an innocent person’s life, I recognize that when the moment of stopping a murderer in his tracks passes, the right to stop that sinner in that way also passes. But this is an extreme case.
Beyond situations of murder (which are extremely uncommon to confront), when we see another’s behavior that we find distasteful or even wrong, how do we react? Our distaste isn’t baseless. But it is often unjustified, because we don’t know the whole story. There is much more to the totality of an individual than the snapshot in time that gives us our impression.
Pre-Tisha B’Av we often hear that the antidote to baseless hatred is Ahavat Chinam – baseless love. But it’s never baseless because it follows the examples of the great Ohavei Yisrael, the models of loving Jewish people.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe saw Jews at different levels of observance and not in terms of labels and camps. Shlomo Carlebach saw every Jew after Hitler and Communism as a miracle. How many of us can say we just love all our fellow Jews, period? And why should we? Because he and she is our fellow Jew.
Sometimes it’s extremely hard. But if we can treat Eisav, Moav, and Ammon nicely, and if the realists in Israel today can continue to say “we want to get along with our Arab neighbors,” and in many cases they do, then certainly we can find a way to try to see the context of others’ existence before rushing to judge.
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