Rabbi Yosef Blau gives a Yom Haatzmaut D’var Torah at the Encounter Gala

On Yom Haatzmaut Last Year, Rabbi Yosef Blau gave a speech at the gala for Encounter. The Encounter program bring American Jews and Israelis to meet Palestinians in the West Bank- to get to know one another as people. They describe themselves as follows:

While the Jewish commu­nity continues to be one of the most influ­en­tial stake­holders in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most American Jews have never met a Palestinian, nor seri­ously encountered Palestinian narratives or perspec­tives. Influential segments of the American Jewish community advo­cate for solu­tions to the conflict and educate the next gener­a­tion about it in complete isola­tion from Palestinian people and claims. This infor­ma­tion vacuum perpet­u­ates our failure to bring about real, viable solu­tions and further­more, research demonstrates that simplistic advo­cacy efforts are driving away our next generation’s engagement with the Jewish community and their commit­ment to Israel.

Underlying all of Encounter’s work is the core belief that inno­v­a­tive strate­gies for peace will be created only when influ­en­tial stake­holders in a conflict have oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet one another, toopen them­selves to previ­ously disre­garded points-of-view, and to develop rela­tion­ships across polit­ical and ideo­log­ical divides.

Rabbi Blau had recently been on one of their trips to the West Bank and describes as his Yom Haatzmaut message what he learned from a Palestinian businessman in Ramallah. Note his conclusion in the last paragraph.

D’var Torah by Rabbi Yosef Blau at the Encounter Gala

Judaism is a complex blend of partic­u­larism and univer­salism. As a Religious Zionist leader, committed to Israel as a Jewish demo­c­ratic state, I felt it impor­tant to learn directly from the Palestinians with whom we share living in the Land of Israel — to broaden my under­standing of the land so central to my passionate and reli­gious concern. Encounter created this opportunity.

I want to share a message of Torah by opening with a corre­spon­dence that I had with a Palestinian leader I met on my trip. After the attacks in Itamar, I exchanged emails with Sam Bahour, a Palestinian American busi­nessman living in Ramallah. We did not always agree, but the dialogue was conducted in a spirit of mutual listening and respect. I wanted to know his response to the massacre. His response captured the danger of demo­nizing an entire popu­la­tion, the impor­tance of seeing our so-called enemies person-by-person and one-by-one. He wrote me that when in 2004–5 the Israeli Defense Forces was bombing Ramallah with F-16s during the second Intifada, he told his young daugh­ters that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was piloting each bomber plane flying over their heads. It was the only way he could think of to convince them that this was not being done by “Jews” or “Israelis”, but rather one indi­vidual political/military figure who was respon­sible. He wanted to teach them to direct their anger at one man and one man only; he refused to allow his daugh­ters to perceive all Israelis as war-mongering and violent.

This message is espe­cially rele­vant today, on Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day, preceded yesterday by Yom Hazikaron,

Remembrance Day, commem­o­rating those who fell in the wars fought to create and main­tain the state of Israel. How are we guided by our Sages to cele­brate mili­tary victory and Israel’s Independence? What is the Jewish atti­tude toward our adver­saries in a time of war and loss on both sides?After the split­ting of the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptian soldiers Moses and the Israelites sang Az Yashir, a song of celebration. According to the Talmud, the angels want to sing as well, but G-d stopped them. “My crea­tures are drowning and you want to sing.” G-d teaches His chil­dren to affirm the humanity and dignity of our adver­saries, even in the face of violence and war.
Our foun­da­tional Biblical story of being freed from slavery sensi­tizes us to the humanity, dignity and suffering of all other human beings. In the context of war and grief, our foun­da­tional commit­ment is most tested and stretched. Many of us begin to reduce the world’s complexity to black-and-white terms. But to do so is to forget G-d’s message that all humans are His crea­tures. Encounter forced me to confront the humanity of those who had been “other”- to inter­nalize their humanity emotionally. This is perhaps one of the greatest expres­sions of this core message of our Torah.

Click here to see a video of the speech and for the introduction he was given by the head of Encounter, Rabbi Miriam Margles.

Any Thoughts on that last paragraph?