Balak: Feeling conflicted?

Attention Jews. Are you conflicted about the war against Hamas? On the one hand, for years and years, Hamas was shooting rockets at Israel from Gaza. Israel set up bomb shelters all over the place, instituted a rapid alert system so residents could flee to those shelters in minutes or even seconds, and had air defense systems that mitigated the airborne attacks. Israelis — and we who care about Jews not being murdered — settled into a quiet acceptance. The status quo allowed us to not panic. Life was always hard for Gazans, and we always felt for them but that was the doing of Hamas. Hamas, we knew then and certainly know now, was taking all sorts of aid and building materials — that could have made Gazan life better — to make tunnels and rockets and do pretty much anything other than helping the Gazans. It was awful. It’s even worse now.

On the other hand, a lot of us Jews are just sick and tired of Jews being murdered.

We are tired of threats to wipe us out, fed up with taking us captive, horrified by and not forgetting the barbaric sexual violence used as an intentional weapon. We’ve had enough of being targeted. Hamas broke a de facto cease-fire; they poked the bear too much and now they are suffering the retaliation. And a lot of us are feeling OK about that. Except our hearts break for the Gazans who are caught up, bombed out, displaced, hungry. How can we not feel anguish for the suffering of the civilians?

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See? Conflicted.

Well, those feelings are pretty normal for us Jews. They go way back, all the way back. In Parashat Balak, we start with Balak recalling what the Israelites did to the Amorites. What did they do? The Israelites, while on the march, asked for safe passage through the territory of Sihon, king of the Amorites. They promised to not even drink water from their wells. “No,” Sihon, said and he attacked the Israelites. The Israelites fought back and won. And this happened again when they came to Bashan. The text offers no reason why King Og went out to battle other than that he did. And he lost. We didn’t start the fight; we didn’t want the fight.

Now we begin our portion: “Moab was alarmed because that people was so numerous. Moab dreaded the Israelites and Moab said to the elders of Midian, ‘Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.’” But would they? Perhaps we are seeing a very early version of “fear of Jews”? Perhaps this is an early example of panic over too many Jews succeeding too well leading people to manufacture false libels against us.

There is an underlying theme in our foundational history that positions us as wanting to be quietly amongst ourselves to fulfill our brit. We are willing to fight if required but prefer not to. I am mindful of other moments, particularly the Book of Joshua, where ancient Israelite behavior does not conform to our more peaceful inclinations, but that does not deny that there is a constant yearning to be left alone and a constant need to fight when set upon. We don’t like it but what can we do?

Up and die? We’re supposed to use our heritage to make the world a better place and make ourselves better people. I understand the irony of the tremendous sadness wartime destruction brings both in antiquity and now. The current destruction is the result of us wanting to stay alive
in order to make the world a better place. But should we just simply say to the ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Persians, Greeks, Romans and so forth, up until this day, “Our existence is causing you grief. Come murder us all to make the world a better place?”

Reasonable people can say to Hamas enough is enough, and reasonable people can also have questions about the prosecution of the war in Gaza. Reasonable people are allowed to feel conflicted about that. Sometimes things don’t go smoothly and we can feel bad. But we get to stay alive and live out our heritage.

About that, I’m not conflicted. PJC

Rabbi Larry Freedman is the director of the Joint Jewish Education Program. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.