Thoughts Following an Atrocity in the City of Peace

Yerushalayim, the city of Peace, has been anything but that for the past several weeks….the intentional killing of pedestrians waiting for the light rail and buses by Palestinians using their cars as weapons….and the horrific massacre at a synagogue during shacharit on Tuesday morning in the quiet Har Nof neighborhood in western Jerusalem have filled the headlines.

My heart sank when I heard about the news of the attack in a synagogue during morning davenning where two cousins from East Jerusalem using a gun and meat cleaver snuffed out the lives of four Rabbis and the life of a Druze policeman who tried to halt the terror attack. Not only did the world lose the presence of 5 righteous individuals, but it gained 24 orphans as a result of the evil that was unleashed on Tuesday.  Yet you may have noticed CNN’s original headline ran stating that four Israelis and two Palestinians were killed in the attack, failing to note that the two Palestinians were the terrorists or you might have seen that CNN superimposed their preliminary coverage of the terror attack with the headline: "Deadly attack on Jerusalem mosque."

From my perspective such irresponsible reporting only tries to vilify Israel on the world stage.

Of course as a grandmother of 4 grandchildren growing up in Jerusalem, including one who travels by bus to Har Nof each day Sunday- Friday, to go to school, my heart was pounding rapidly as I hoped and prayed that the city bus did not pick her up that morning.  It did not!  But of course there were other families in Jerusalem that morning, who were not feeling a sense of relief that their loved ones had been out of harm’s way.

Events such as these remind us that there is evil in the world and I must say that much of it is being perpetrated by Islamic extremists.  Rabbi Michael Gold wrote an essay this week in which he talked about confronting such evil. He wrote, “Rabbinic tradition actually speaks of two kinds of evil actions by human beings.  (See Horayot 11a and other Rabbinic sources.)  There are people who act l'teavon, because they cannot control their appetite.  This includes someone who hurts someone else while drunk or steals because of out-of-control greed.  There may be regret and room for repentance afterwards. 

Then there are people who act l'hakhis deliberately and wantonly.  The act is motivated by pure hatred, with no regret.  After the murders in Jerusalem, there was joyful dancing in the street to celebrate among many Palestinians.” How do we confront this type of evil? Is there a way to put an end to it?

Today we read a Torah portion that spoke of the hatred between two brothers, Jacob and Esau.  “Now Esau harbored a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him and Esau said to himself, Let the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob.” (Genesis 27:41) 

 Over the centuries, Rabbinic interpretation led to the concept that Jacob became Israel and Esau became Edom which became Rome and eventually the progenitor of Christianity.  We know the bloody conflicts marked by the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews from their birthplaces.  Yet, we also know that the general nature of relationships between Christians and Jews has changed over the recent past. The establishment of Vatican II, a council of reform, had much to do with this change.

"Prior to this time, the church had been almost seen as a fortress, very much concerned about its own internal stability and integrity and engaging the world in terms of missionary activity.  "Pope John wanted to reinforce that missionary mandate, but he also wanted to create an environment of dialogue, where the church would engage in all the forces of the modern world." (peter hoff)

That seems to be what is missing from Islamic clerics in today’s world…a desire to engage in all the forces of the modern world.  When Anouar Majid addressed an audience at First Plymouth Church earlier this month, his message was that without such a reformation, fundamentalists within Islam would continue their bloody path.

 

“Jews are descendants of Isaac and Moslems are the descendants of his half brother Ishmael.  There is hatred between Isaac and Ishmael in the Bible that goes back even further than Jacob and Esau.  But there is also a scene in the Bible where Isaac and Ishmael put their hatred aside to bury their father Abraham.” (Michael Gold) We must continue to pray for a day when the children of Ishmael stop their hatred of the children of Isaac.  We must pray for the day when these two Abrahamic religions can learn to respect and even love one another.  Yes, we must confront evil and defend ourselves.  But also, we must pray for that day when evil will finally disappear from the earth.

We must also make a point of “calling on people of conscience everywhere – Jews and non-Jews – to join us in speaking out against the kind of atrocity that took place this week, affirming our common humanity, and saying that our houses of worship – our places of sanctuary – cannot be violated.” It is crucial. 

May the souls of :

Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky z’l
Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg z’l
Rabbi Calman Levine z’l
Rabbi Moshe Twersky z’l
Police officer Zidan Saif of the Druze village of Kfar Yanouch in the Galilee

Be bound up in the bond of life.