Dear friends
In normal times, this week’s Parsha is an absolute gold mine. The challenge would have been where to focus our attention. On Avraham’s extreme generosity to three dirty strangers? On his righteous indignation when challenging God? Or on the moment when his son is bound to the altar about to be sacrificed and Avraham’s epiphany that human sacrifice is an abomination?
Today, these all seem to be missing the mark by a huge way. We live in a world where an unimaginable horror of such magnitude was perpetrated against our people, that to compare it we need to go back to Nazi Germany. And yet, instead
of solidarity with Israel across the world, we hear chants which have not been acceptable in ‘civilised’ society since the Holocaust.
Instead of riots against Iran and Hamas decrying the savagery to Israelis and the inevitable disaster the action is wreaking on the Palestinian civilian population by Israel’s response, we hear slogans delegitimising Jewish existence and explicitly
blaming them for the massacre itself. We look at the ‘elite’ university campuses in the US and finally come face to face with the pervasive moral and philosophical rot.
But actually the first line in this week’s Parsha is extremely illuminating and relevant. God ‘appears’ to Avraham as he’s recovering from his circumcision. Avraham suddenly sees three strangers and he runs toward them, away from God’s presence. The disrespect to God you’d think is at least as grave as any we can imagine. And yet it is precisely Avraham, who in a flash, without a word of apology, forsakes God’s presence to look after needy humans, and becomes the father and inspiration of our People.
The contrast with Hamas couldn’t be starker. Though it seems obvious we need to remind again and again that Hamas is not a political movement. It is a religious ideology that looks to achieve certain political outcomes. And for them Avraham’s actions are an abomination. They would let the whole world around them burn with everyone in it so long as they get to bask in whatever perverted notion they have of God’s presence. Not the ‘would’, they ‘do’.
Those in the campuses who hold placards ‘by whatever means necessary would be the first to be thrown off rooftops in an actualised society of Hamas’ creation. With their atheistic postmodern relativist notions of truth their use would expire
the second Israel is annihilated.
This is why the elimination of Hamas is an absolutely defensible moral position. The mounting civilian toll in Gaza is indeed a tragedy. But with all the commentating and visceral outrage I have yet to hear a single version of an alternative which doesn’t amount to Israel surrendering to an entity seeking its annihilation. Self-defence dictates Hamas’ elimination. The causalities and questions of how much is enough should be directed at Hamas and their sponsors.
It seems so obvious but for many it’s not so we must make the point again and again. What if Gaza was ruled by 30-50 thousand Gestapo troops who came out and gassed Jews whenever they had the chance and simply returned to the civilian population for cover? The allied response in WW2 was to carpet bomb German and Japanese cities to force their surrender. Thankfully, Israel is an enlightened nation with morality at its core who see the need and responsibility to minimise the toll of innocent suffering. This is why they target the bad guys and not the innocents. But whatever suffering to innocents is caused is on the head of
these cynical fundamentalists.
We will not be preached to about morality. Our tradition is based on a guy (Avraham) whose entire endeavour was to bring ‘Tzedaka umishpat’ – compassion, generosity, and justice into this world. Our enemy wants 70 virgins in heaven. Maybe a Shidduch with the hordes of their useful idiot supporters can be arranged and we can avoid this conflagration.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shneur