Our Torah reading for this week, Parashat Toldot starts with good news. Rebecca, Isaac’s wife is pregnant.
The bad news is her pregnancy is a difficult one. She is in pain and we are told that it is because her twin baby-boys were pressing against each other. So according to the author of the Torah they started fighting with each other even before they were born. And it took them both years to learn that giving each other space and living in peace is what they and their families needed.
Is it not what we all want and need: to live in peace?
I definitely want to live in peace after ending up in Israel during the two previous Gaza wars and in Ukraine at the beginning of the current war. I spent a lot of time praying for peace but at times I feel like that old Rabbi, who was approached by the journalist at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
He told the old Rabbi: I heard that you have been praying every day for peace at this Wall for the last 50 years!”
The Rabbi said: “Yes.”
“Amazing “ – he replied – “And how do you feel after doing it for 50 years?!”
“It is like talking to a brick wall” – replied the Rabbi.
We all love the idea of peace. In the Jewish tradition we have a very important value of compromising called “Shalom HaBait” where we are encouraged to make peace within our family and with others.
But do we know a single period in human history when there was peace in the world? No, we don’t.[1] History is filled with wars, conflicts, conquests, the rise and fall of the Empires.
Have you ever read the book of Joshua in our Tanach? It is quite bloody. If you feel depressed about the state of the world today, please read it. It will make you feel better.
There were many periods in recent history when peaceful religious concepts in the hands of bad leaders were used to persecute and murder other people like the Inquisition in Spain and various Terrorists Organizations.
Rabbi John Rayner said: “It is not enough to pray for peace. We have to work for it: to challenge those who foster conflict, and refute their propaganda; to ascertain and make known the truth, both when it confirms and when it runs counter to conventional views…”[2]
But what is the truth? My truth, your truth, the Jewish truth or the Muslim truth, the Conservative point of view, the Liberal point of view, BBC’s point of view or AL Jazeera’s point of view. As one of the Shin Bet heads says in the film “The gate keepers”: “One people’s terrorist is another people’s freedom fighter.”
Midrash Bereishit Rabbah[3] tells us a story about the Council God held with the Angels before creating the first human. We learn there that the Angels of Kindness and Righteousness argued with the Angels of Truth and Peace.
Kindness spoke in favour of creation of a human as “he will perform acts of kindness.” Truth spoke against creation as “he will lie”. The righteousness said: “Let him be created as he will perform acts of righteousness” and Peace said: Let him not be created as he will be full of quarrels and disputes.”
And what did God do? God threw down the Truth to the Earth and created the first human being. So the Psalm[4] tells us that the Truth is God’s seal and that it will spring from the Earth.”
But how will it spring from the Earth? Only we, can lift up the Truth by facing the facts and complexities of our world.
And it is difficult for us to lift up the Truth and as a result of it ourselves to a better world because our world is full of horrible facts, complexities, hypocrisies and lies.
The facts are that according to 2019 official stats the UK is the second country after America in the global sales of arms, followed by Russia and France. Israel reported $12.5 billion of defence exports, 24% of them to Arab partners.[5]
The complexities of the world need to be recognised in nuances. Wars are bad for everyone, not only the countries which are directly involved in the war and are losing generations of their young and old, but other countries are becoming poorer as a result of it too. The UK has given Ukraine military assistance of £4.6 billion so far.[6] This noble endeavour leaves us £4.6 billion poorer as a nation and didn’t help Ukrainians either. After almost two years of war and countless dead, Ukraine has made no progress neither in gaining all its territories back nor to a peace deal.
The war between Israel and Hamas is devastating for us Jewish people, not only because our hearts are bleeding for the dead and the hostages, but also due to increased antisemitism and a deteriorating relationship with the Muslim community.
But we, the Jewish people, don’t want innocent Gazans to be killed in the conflict either. Any human life lost to a war is a crime against humanity. And our hearts are broken thinking about all the young Israelis killed in this war and their families.
What is war good for? Absolutely nothing.[7]
We all know that but continue to sell arms to each other, we know that and allow different empires to play proxy-games at the expense of other nations’ lives, we know that but continue to speak for peace and work for war.
I was told many times by different people: if one country does not sell weapons to another, that country will buy those weapons from someone else. So, shall we accept that the world we are living in is not created for peace but war and that our efforts for peace are fruitless and pointless.
But that’s not the truth either.
This Thursday night, in our Synagogue’s kitchen, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim women came together to cook for homeless people in Barnet. It was such a fun evening. I love cooking but never would call it fun. The fun came from the company, positivity, warmth and enthusiasm of the participants. We didn’t talk politics, we didn’t talk war. We did a good deed – a mitzvah – together.
In the world, which is broken and in need of healing, Thursday evening became a ray of hopeful radiance for the future. The truth also is that we, ordinary people, want to live in peace and want our children to live in peace and harmony with their neighbours too.
The truth is, we, our community, have to do it ourselves: build relationships, one by one, which no lies and wars will be able to destroy.
We can’t change the world just yet but we can start working for peace in our local community and the city so that Michael, our bar-mitzvah boy, and his friends can enjoy peace in our country.
[1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture-online/case-studies/2022/mar/can-there-ever-be-world-peace#:~:text=Historians%20might%20quibble%20over%20the,to%20rule%20over%20other%20nations.
[2] Siddur Lev Chadash, 1995, Stephen Austin&Sons Ltd., Hertford, p,293.
[3] Bereishit Rabbah 8:6
[4] Psalm 85:12
[5] Reuters, “Israel reports record $12.5 billion defence exports”, June 13th
[6] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/
[7] A quote from the song by Edwin Star
