Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 26

“Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service, that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality.” (Man’s Quest for God pg. 151)

The news is full of “war atrocities” committed by Israel in its war against Hamas, its war against terrorists who have committed unspeakable acts. There are, regrettably, many deaths in Gaza because of the actions of Hamas, not Israel. While Israel is being vilified for responding to the attack, the declaration of war by Hamas, the world has forgotten the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel above. While Israel has built up its troops at the border, they have not entered Gaza as they weigh the incalculable loss of life an invasion will bring. We are being subjected to the anti-semitic view that the war in Gaza is in a vacuum, that the perpetrators are the Israelis, that the ‘innocent’ civilians who cheer, who support the terrorists of Hamas are being crushed by Israel, not by their own people, that Hamas’ pleasure as related in the tapes and the instructions found is ‘a fight for freedom’. Yet, we seem to forget the Israeli and foreign hostages taken, raped, beaten that are still in Gaza, we seem to forget the babies that were killed mercilessly, we seem to forget that Hamas spent their money on building tunnels, building and buying rockets and other arms and ammunition to kill Israelis, to kill Jews as they happily proclaim. Israel drops leaflets, sends text messages to let people know before the bombs drop, Hamas fires rockets often into Israel and infiltrates/crosses the border in surprise attacks and slaughters.

Rabbi Heschel’s description of what a soldier goes through; “the horror of battle” is accurate as so many of the soldiers who were in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the two Gulf wars, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc attest to. No Israeli that I have ever spoken with nor heard has celebrated “the horror of battle”, they have been changed forever by this “horror”. War alters the lives of each and every soldier especially when they serve as “an engagement for service”, which is what the Israeli reservists are doing. Yet, as we can discern from one of the telephone conversations where a terrorist is proclaiming how many Israelis he killed on Oct. 7 and his parents and family are praising him and Allah for this slaughter of innocents, terrorists kill for pleasure, Hamas soldiers enjoy and celebrate every death they cause! This is whom is being praised by some of the world, who have used ‘innocent’ civilians as human shields, who have prevented people from leaving Northern Gaza to seek refuge! While they claim to be fighting for Allah, while their supporters in Qatar, Iran, and across the globe praise them and Allah for every Jew that is killed, murdered, slaughtered, raped, it is clear that they are not fighting for anything more valuable than life, it is clear that they are bastardizing the teachings of Islam, the war they are fighting is for self, not for God.

We, the rest of the world, have failed once again to understand and see the nuances of this war, we have, once again, reduced this war to “good guys and bad guys”, to Israel being bad and the ‘poor Palestinians, poor Hamas, poor terrorists’ being good. Israel has made many errors in its treatment of the territories-full stop! Arafat, Abbas, Hamas have rejected numerous overtures for a peaceful settlement-full stop! Instead of looking for how terrible the Jews are, instead of blaming all Palestinians, why not seek a solution that honors both the safety, security, dignity of the Jews and the safety, security, and dignity that every Palestinian deserves? Watching and hearing the people on the left celebrate Hamas’ gliding into a concert and killing innocent people, their denial of the murders of so many Israeli, American, and other nationalities is disgusting. It is a betrayal of humanity, it is a betrayal of God, it is a betrayal of Allah, it is a betrayal of principle, of decency, of truth.

We are in desperate need of recovering our sense of dignity, our knowing that living principles is more important than staying alive through betraying our inner knowing, our connection to God, to something greater than ourselves. For those of us in recovery, we make this commitment to serve, we make this commitment to value life’s principles every single day! We “practice these principles in all our affairs” because we know the slippery slope of not seeing nuance, not seeing the whole picture, because we are acutely aware of the danger of “just this one time”. Just as we say about a drink, drug, etc-“one is too many and 1000 is not enough”, we know this to be true about our commitment to service, to truth. Living in the “both/and”, leaning into the nuances of life is difficult and it is the only way to recover what is truly valuable in life-our dignity, our souls, our humanity. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark