War Diary 5

Sacrificing to eradicate evil still hurts

War Diary 5

No matter where you live, in a country this small the war will get to you eventually.

A person I work with who lives in Kiryat Gat, down in the south the country and not too far from Gaza, recently mentioned that there were times that Hamas would be firing missiles at Sderot and Ashkelon and Ashdod and Kiryat Gat, but it was fairly localized, like a patchy low-pressure system that brings scattered showers.  Tel Aviv and further north stayed “dry,” without sirens, and people went about their business:  work, restaurants, bars, friends… while down close to Gaza, people were spending much of the evening in bomb shelters. 

This war is different.  From the very first day, the entire country was touched.  Everyone knew someone who had been murdered, fell defending a kibbutz, was kidnapped and being held in Gaza. 

The war gets closer still when your sons or daughters get drafted, when you see them putting on their uniforms and heading out to the front, south or north.  Will this be the last time I see her, hug him, bless him? …. As a friend of mine said when he saw me distracted and distractedly looking at the news: calm down, you’ll either get a phone call or you won’t.  It sounds so stoic as to almost be cruel, but in truth I learn nothing from the papers, from the radio.  Either I will get a phone call or I won’t.  Focus on life.

Friday, just before Shabbat, our neighbors got a phone call.  Their son, 21 years old, a young man who would sit next to me in shul, had fallen in Gaza.  I’m not going to eulogize him - that’s for others who knew him better.  I wasn’t at the funeral.  I was sitting guard duty last night when he was buried.

I wrote to a friend of mine:  yes, and this is war, and war against evil, which makes the sacrifices for winning no easier to bear - if only we could see the faces of the children who will be saved, if only we could imagine a situation where this will not again be necessary....

Both those things are equally impossible.  Antisemitism is immutable.  Inexplicable.  A human stain. We will always have to be prepared for that, cognizant of our vulnerability and our potential strength when we unite.  But in no case can we excuse those who hate us and would do us evil, under the mistaken impression that dialogue can change their mind, that we are strong enough to suffer without response.

“We were unprepared.  Not because of cowardliness, but because we did not see clearly the moral implication of self-defense; we never understood how wrong it was to tolerate evil when it was directed towards ourselves.  We were insufficiently prepared to reconcile the Jewish teachings of anti-militarism and respect for all life with the resistance to evil demanded by the circumstances….[A] strategy is needed; not a political strategy, but a moral one, based on the principle that to tolerate evil against oneself, in however mild a form, makes one an accomplice to the act. It is a man’s moral obligation to refuse to obey the commands of injustice…”  That’s Dr. Eliezer Berkovits, my rabbi’s father. 

When we make excuses for the evil of others, we become partners in perpetuating evil.  It takes great strength for Jews to recognize that kind of evil and to rise up against it. We empathize too much; we believe, in the most unsupported and self-deceiving way, that all people are in fact good at heart.  Our national anthem is Hatikva - the hope - but it is not the hope for universal goodness and peace; it is the hope for national restoration in our ancestral homeland.  Creating a state of Israel has (obviously) not cured antisemitism,, and does not (just as obviously) prevent pogroms.  But it does allow us to defend ourselves, to take vengeance upon unrepentant evil, to unite together in strength, to build and rebuild, to be responsible for using power linked together with mercy, to be students and even soldiers for justice and peace.

More oaths next time, maybe.  If I remember.