Drashot for Vayishlach

Ensuring Peace by Preparing for War

A Drash for Friday, 30 November

During the years when I served as a military chaplain in the US Air Force, I kept more than busy with my duties for the forces and my social life among the troops and especially, my chaplain colleagues.  But I also tried to stay connected with local Jewish communities whenever there was one in proximity to my duty station.  When I mixed with the local Jews, I often found myself serving as an apologist for the very phenomenon of Jews in the military service.

          In the minds of many diaspora Jews, military service doesn’t ‘feel’ compatible with Judaism.  How can Jews serve voluntarily in the armed forces, when we pray so often, and so fervently, for peace?  When we sing Oseh shalom bimromav with all our heart?  When we listen to the voices of the Prophets, informing us that we will beat our swords into ploughshares and study war no more?

          Of course, we all know that the modern Israeli state has an army, and a very powerful and efficient one at that.  We even take a certain delight in seeing Israel’s army as one of the world’s best fighting forces.  But at the same time, we see Israel as fielding a superb army only as a matter of necessity, since the country is surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs and other Muslims who would like to annihilate the Jewish state.  We see Israel’s army as a sort of aberration by necessity.

          But herein lies an important truism about living in the free and democratic world.  Keeping a standing army is about being ready to defend our ideals and interests.  About serving as a deterrent to potential aggressors.  This tradition goes all the way back to Jacob.

          As this week’s Torah portion opens, Jacob is heading back to Canaan after spending 14 years in servitude to his father-in-law.  He is going to reclaim the land that is his inheritance.  Even so, he is still terribly afraid is his brother, Esau’s wrath.  As you remember in last week’s portion, Jacob fled for his life after he and his mother conspired to trick Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau.  This, after Jacob had earlier coerced Esau into selling him his birth right for a pittance – a bowl of lentil soup.

          Esau is seen in traditional thought as representing the culture of the martial state.  He was a man of the field – a hunter and a soldier.  He was not a deep thinker.  Even though the Rabbis acknowledge that Jacob tricked Esau, they still consider Jacob’s inheriting the Abrahamic legacy as proper.  They consider Jacob to be ‘the right man for the job’ despite his flaws.  Esau, in contrast is associated with Edom, who joined with the Canaanites in fighting against Israel.

          Although Jacob is represented as being a quiet and thoughtful man, he begins this week’s portion by doing something very military-like.  He dispatches a reconnaissance troop to scout out the land before him and determine Esau’s intentions if possible.  Even if he’s not the kind of man to be a military commander, he at least seems to understand the value of collecting battlefield intelligence.

          The scouts return and report to Jacob that Esau is coming to meet him, and that he has 400 men with him.  He’s coming to meet him with 400 men.  It sounds like a round number, like an estimate.  But the Rabbis understood the number to represent a military formation.  In the Roman Army, of which the Rabbis had direct experience, 400 men is a cohort, a specific independent field unit.  So reading between the lines, Esau is advancing for battle with his brother.

          Jacob is not a military commander, but he immediately begins acting like one.  He divides his entourage into two camps in order to protect his people and possessions from Esau.  Should his brother’s intentions prove to be hostile as feared, Jacob will hopefully be able to escape capture or death, and have enough forces to ultimately regroup.

          When they ultimately do meet, Esau does not engage directly in frontal battle.  Rather, he tries to get Jacob to proceed home with him.  But Jacob, smelling a trap is too shrewd to fall for it.  Instead he insists on heading a different way and settling his camp away from his brother’s.  He clearly sees Esau as a viable threat and wishes to give himself a chance to strengthen himself for the eventual, and inevitable confrontation.

          This is the reality of the modern Jewish state.  Israel never sought to be a modern Sparta.  Rather, she sought to be an Athens, a centre of learning and rational thought.  But with her borders surrounded by those who did not, and really still do not, accept her existence and legitimacy, she has by necessity become a sort of a Switzerland on the Mediterranean.  A country desiring only neutrality.  Yet ready to inflict hurt upon those who would violate her desire to avoid military engagement.  With not only a large standing army, but also an armed citizenry ready to be called up on short notice.  Following the example of our distant ancestor, Jacob, they seek to avoid war by being eternally ready for war.    

          This is the lot, in greater or lesser degree, of any country in this dangerous age in which we live.  There are enough rogue or aggressive states ready to exploit weakness.  I’m talking about the Irans of the world.  The Chinas and Russias.  The Syrias and North Koreas.  There are also forces beyond the control of states, able to field the weapon of terror to control nations whom they see as enemies.  Like it or not, we must counter these threats to our way of life.  To our values.  To our security.

          Here in Australia, one can be forgiven for getting to thinking of the world as being a rather benign place.  Or alternatively, thinking that great distance from the hotspots of the world will keep us safe.  Even so, such thinking is clearly mistaken.  This is why Australia maintains a robust presence in Afghanistan, for example.  Not because your country wishes to rule that country in junta with the United States and others.  Rather, because your national leadership recognises Afghanistan as a breeding ground for terror that can and will spill over to confront your country if allowed free reign.  As it did in Bali, in 2002.  Afghanistan is a challenge, one that cannot easily be dodged.  This despite the continuing cost of the operation.  Despite the periodic heartbreak when one of your sons comes home in a box.

          The existential threat to the nation seems far more real, and more immediate, in Israel.  This is why the Israelis agreed to the cease-fire in Gaza last week.  Some of us applaud their stepping back from the brink and easing tensions in a very dangerous confrontation.  Others might criticise the Israeli leadership for not pursuing their campaign until they’d destroyed for once and for all Hamas’ ability to fire rockets on Israeli cities and towns.  But we really should avoid the temptation to be ‘Monday Morning Quarterbacks’ and judge the Israeli civilian and military leadership’s decision.  We can’t possibly know what they know.  And we don’t live with the threat of missiles raining down on us.

          But again, what about the Prophets?  What about Micah, who predicted that “Every man beneath his vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid?”  Or Isaiah, who said “They shall beat their ploughshares in pruning hooks”?  Were the Prophets of Israel just spouting a bunch of peacenik nonsense?

          In a word, no.  But they were predicting this in the context of a messianic world, a world that does not yet exist.  Rather, we live in the world foreseen by the prophet Joel, who instructed beating “ploughshares into swords.”  In other words, to be ready to defend your peace, your rights, your security.

          Once, I read a philosophical critique of the enterprise national defence that went like this:  Why is that that we say we’re preparing for peace by training and equipping for war?  The author’s point was that, by preparing for war, we only make war inevitable.  There’s a certain logic to the argument…until you really think about it.

          The really logical argument would be that, the weaker you seem to a potential aggressor, the more likely that he is going exploit that weakness for his own gain.

          So we follow the example of Jacob, the mild man whom circumstances forced to think in military terms.  To ensure the peace of his family and flocks by preparing for war.  Jacob surely would have preferred to expend his energies differently.  But his brother’s intentions forced him to take a different posture.  And the message to us is that we should seek peace and pursue it.  But that, at the same time, we should not for a moment let down our guard.  Shabbat shalom.

Eugene Delacroix, Jacob Wrestling with an Angel

Wrestling with an Angel

A Drash for Saturday, 1 December 2012

Last week we read of Jacob’s dream of the ladder.  Angels were ascending and descending constantly.  And G-d stood by Jacob’s side, assuring him that he would be with him.  That the promise made to Abraham would be fulfilled through Jacob.  That Jacob’s offspring would prevail and rule the land that had been given them.

          This week we read of Jacob’s wrestling with an angel all night.  We’re not told that this is a dream.  Rather, we’re led to believe that this is an actual encounter.  That Jacob actually does spend the night wrestling and ends up with a disjointed hip.  And with a new name:  Yisrael, the one who has striven with G-d.  In that sense, we’re given to believe that the angel wrestling with Jacob was sent by G-d for that purpose.

          As we remember from last week, Jacob fled to Haran for his life.  His brother, Esau was presumably in a fratricidal rage over the stolen blessing.  Not to mention the ‘tricked’ sale of the birth right.  Now, some 14 years later Jacob is returning.  He must, if he is to claim his inheritance.  Even so, he is afraid.

Our tradition offers several possibilities as to who was this ‘angel’ wrestling with Jacob, and why.  The one I like best, is that it is his own yetzer hara, his evil inclination.

          Our Christian neighbours generally believe in Original Sin.  That is, they believe that each one of us is stained from birth by the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Each one of us is in need of eternal redemption from that sin.  And as you can guess, they believe they have the means of that redemption!  Our tradition, in contrast teaches that we are neutral and are guided by our own inclination toward good – the yetzer tov – and evil.  In any given circumstance, we make moral choices and follow either inclination.

          Our tradition, as I pointed out last night, does not require that we allow someone to harm us freely.  This applies both personally and to the nation.  Taking up arms to defend one’s self or country is perfectly legitimate.  We are not instructed to beat our swords into ploughshares.  Rather, we are informed that the end of war will be a consequence of the Messianic Times.  Until the day arrives, we must defend ourselves.  There have been, and will continue to be, Jews who are pacifists.  But no recognised form of Judaism instructs us to be pacifist.

          This is not hard to reconcile with Jewish law.  Thou shalt not kill is a mis-translation of the Sixth Commandment, Lo tirtzach.  The proper translation is Thou shalt not murder.  Killing in self-defence, including in certain circumstances in war, is not tantamount to murder.  But it is regrettable.  All loss of life is.  If we revere G-d, who is the giver of life, then we should revere life itself.

          Being in a war, and having the responsibility to take lives at times, is a difficult task to say the least.  Many who have served in war have seen their own humanity, or that of others who served with them, suffer.  The choices of how to take the taking of life are both undesirable.  One might feel the pain of the person one has killed, and that could be debilitating.  But the alternative is to become so callous toward the life of one’s enemy that one is unaffected by it.

          Jacob is seen here as understanding that he’s likely to be going into battle against his brother, Esau.  The long night’s wrestle is seen as his wrestling with his own evil inclination.  He is struggling to avoid hating his brother.  He is struggling with the idea that he may end up doing his brother harm, or even killing him.  The wrestling with the angel is seen as a metaphor for Jacob’s own internal struggle at this time.

          As Jacob struggles to maintain his morality, we will be struggling as if with G-d Himself.  That’s why he’s given the name Yisrael.  It is, after all, G-d who has commanded us concerning our behaviour and attitude toward one another.  So when we struggle over what we should or shouldn’t do, we are struggling as if with the very G-d who gave us the Torah.

          We usually call ourselves, collectively, ‘Jews’ or ‘the Jewish people.”  But in the Torah, we’re called Yisrael, the name given to our patriarch Jacob.  The implication is that each one of us has a struggle as we live our lives.  In any given circumstance, we can choose good or evil.  There is always an inclination to choose the path that we know to not be the correct one.  Our lives often feel like a series of struggles as we try to do the right thing, and often do not.  When we make bad choices, there are always circumstances, a ‘price to pay.’

          And the struggle itself is the price of living.  The price of our autonomy.  The price for having the knowledge of Good and Evil.  The price of our humanity.

          Jacob, on the eve of a possible battle with his brother, struggled with his moral self.  He fought his inclination to hate.  To desire to destroy.  All this, while needing to be ready to defend his very life.  In the end, Esau did not appear to be too clever.  Or perhaps he too had first struggled with his inclinations and decided not to try to destroy his brother.   In any case, on the morrow there was no battle – only a parting of the ways.

          As we struggle, each one of us, with the inclination to act morally or otherwise, may our best inclination always win the day.  Even if, G-d forbid we are forced to take another person’s life to defend ourselves, our homes, or our country.  Should we be unfortunate as to be put in that position, may we do so with our humanity intact.  May we learn the lesson of Jacob – a flawed man to be sure, but one who manages to live a Good Life.  Shabbat shalom.