Empathy

Passover begins tomorrow night.  It is usually a joyous holiday.  This year we enter it with heavy hearts.  October 7 and the War in Gaza has aroused passions in the American Jewish community.  The reaction goes from Jews who claim to be anti-Zionist, and call for the creation of a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea", to the supporters of Israel right or wrong.  Since I consider myself a moderate, I am somewhere in the middle.

As I pointed out in my previous blog, history must be remembered.  Those on the left who make the Anti-Zionist claims are caught up in the rhetoric of today with little regard to history.  Calling the Jews in Israel colonizers is a misnomer.  They seem to be unaware or forget that half the Jewish population are Jewish refugees from Arab lands.  The other half are refugees from destruction in Europe.  They did not build Israel as a European colony.  

To blame Israel for the Palestinians not having their own state is also a misreading of history.  The United Nations called for a state for both Jews and Arabs.  It was rejected by the Arabs.  Gaza was taken over by Egypt, and the West Bank by Jordan.  From 1948 to 1967, why was there not a nationalist movement to create an independent Palestinian state that the UN endorsed?  The PLO, formed in 1964, three years before Israel took the West Bank and Gaza, did not see Egypt and Jordan as the reason there was no state.  An independent Palestinian state could only be created "from the river to the sea", by destroying Israel. 

I am not a part of the Israel right or wrong side.  I deplore the loss of life on both sides.  I do not want to play the blame game and say it is all the fault of Hamas that tens of thousands of people have died.  Nor can I put the blame totally on Israel.  Quoting Steven Stills, "nobody's right when everybody's wrong".  I deplore violence.  It is easy for me sitting in safety in America to condemn both sides, buy I am in no position to do that.  I personally did not suffer October 7 or the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.  I can only say what I would like to see.

And so, back to the Sedar of Passover, the festive meal where we see ourselves as slaves and experience freedom.  The part of the Sedar that leads to the most discussion is the four sons.  They are the wise, the wicked, the naive, and the one to young to ask.  The wicked son says, "what does it mean to you?".  We debate how does that make him wicked?  A number of years ago my son said that he is wicked because he has no empathy.  Today in the New York Times, an editorial by Shai Held called, "Passover's Radical Message Is More Vital Than Ever", made the same claim.  The Sedar is to teach us empathy.  

We see this in a Midrash.  When the Israelites are singing the Song of Sea, Exodus 15, the angels want to sing along.  God stops them.  Egyptians died in the sea.  That is sorrowful for God.  We must feel the sorrow for the Palestinians killed in Gaza.  But how do we teach empathy?  As a teacher my whole adult life, I have tried.  The Hebrew Bible is based on that concept.  It is expressed most profoundly by the prophet Micah, God demands justice, kindness, and humility.  Those words are very easy to say.  I can claim that I am all three.But is it true?

I try to teach those qualities and to have those qualities.  I wish the rest of the world did. I would not be in a state of grief now if it did.