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BO: ARE WE COMING OR GOING?
by Rabbi Joel Schwartzman, delivered January 26, 2007 (7th of Sh'vat, 5767)
Those of us who follow the
goings-on in Israel
have perked up this past
week to the reports emanating from the Herzliya Conference. This
conference, which takes place each year, gives a picture of the
strategic threats to Israel.
Many high ranking people from throughout
the world come to share their perspectives and insights. Israel’s
Prime
Minister, Ehud Olmert, addressed this conference on Wednesday and, not
surprisingly, emphasized that the biggest threat to Israel,
if not to
the entire region and the world, was Iran.
I say, “Not surprisingly,”
because Iran
has been the cause of Israeli alarm bells for many months
now. Those who claim that the United States
went to war in Iraq
due to
Jewish pressures and Israeli influence have not been reading the calls
that have been coming from Israel
for the years prior to the Second Gulf
War.
Although the theorizing about what to do about Iran
is compelling,
something else that Prime Minister Olmert said was far more telling
about what is happening in the Jewish state. Olmert began his words with
a call for the President of Israel, Moshe Katzav, to step down from his
position. Sadly and amazingly, Katzav may well soon be indicted for
various sexual crimes against women who have worked for him over the
recent years. Not only is the President of Israel in deep moral and
legal trouble, Olmert himself may well be charged with corruption. It,
then probably comes as no great surprise that Olmert approval rating
among Israelis is as low, following the resignation of the IDF’s Chief
of Staff, Dan Chalutz, and the conduct of this summer’s war with
Hizballah, as President Bush’s is over Iraq. It isn’t just that the
citizenry has lost confidence in their leaders, they are registering
disgust with the ways those leaders have been conducting their affairs.
Between the charges of corruption and incompetence, the opinion polls
concerning the two countries leaders actually are reflecting each other.
I think, to a large degree, the problems that the Israeli and American
populaces identify through their disapproval ratings of their leaders
very much reflect doubt that their leaders are telling them the truth.
The poles also reflect that they cannot see arriving at the ends their
leaders are proposing. There is good reason for this. Olmert seems
desperate to reach an accommodation in the West Bank
territories in an
effort to establish a Palestinian state and make peace with the
Palestinian people. But the entire world witnessed what Israeli
disengagement led to in Gaza
and Israelis understand there is little
hope that a departure from the West Bank would yield
anything different
as long as there is a general consensus among the Palestinians, in
general, and Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations, in
particular, to reject Israel’s
existence.
And President Bush’s plans to send over twenty thousand more American
military personnel to Iraq to help pacify Baghdad seem equally futile an
effort, given our experience with the Sunni and Shiite insurgencies
there over the past five years.
It was Tom Friedman, in an article he wrote for the *World Jewish
Digest,* who linked the Israeli and American experiences. What happens
to and in Israel
is often actually a microcosm and test ground for what
later happens to America
in Iraq and
with Iran.
Arab/Muslim rejection of
a Jewish entity in their midst is mirrored in what we have been
witnessing in the struggle against American forces in Iraq.
Various
ploys like airplane hijackings and suicide bombings, and Iranian
machinations unleashing proxies like Hizballah this past summer, and now
Iran’s training and financing Hamas in the Gaza Strip--all used against
the Jewish state were or are harbingers of what our forces are now
encountering in Baghdad and Anbar Province from the very same Persian
source.
But more I am concerned with the lack of trust that either regime in
Jerusalem and Washington
now inspires. In our /parashat hashavua,/ /BO/,
Moses and God were able to kindle in the fleeing Israelites a dream, a
forceful, magnetic impetus which pulled them forward toward the land God
had promised to their ancestors. The problems that Moses would encounter
in the desert later would be that the people, in the face of the
hardships they were encountering, would come to doubt that dream even as
people today in Israel
and America
now doubt the visions of their
leaders. In all cases, the people perceived the goal as wholly
unachievable. Given their experiences, who can blame them for their lack
of faith?
The differences between the circumstances become apparent only when we
realize that the power behind Moses’ actions is far more certain,
because God is wholly righteous and, therefore, completely dependable.
Neither the President of the United States
or the Prime Minister of
Israel have told the complete truth or acted with total fidelity to
their oaths of office. There are always those political and economic
concerns which must be met. And those contingent elements invariably
come back to haunt their owners. Because they have been caught by the
public in the webs of what has been perceived as their own fabrications,
that element of trust and the widening of a credibility gap may well
sink not only their plans in their given areas of conflict, but also
their political careers, if not their very legacies.
If we turn this analysis upon ourselves, perhaps we can come to some
wider truths. Clarity in what exactly is motivating us is a blessing in
itself. It often eludes us. We live in states of relative, controlled
chaos. The mix of human exigencies and urgencies being what they are, it
behooves us to have a standard of truth and honesty for ourselves to
which we can appeal, especially when so many motivating elements seems
to threaten our stability. The Israelites had such a standard. God
provided them a path to “truth north” as the Almighty led them from
their past misery into a more promising future.
So, here’s the question from this week’s /sedra/: were the Israelites
going to something in their own minds when they hurriedly left Egypt,
or
were they running away from something?
I believe that this is a huge question not only in order for us to
understand Israelite motivation when we read this week’s portion, but
also in how it impacts our own lives. There are any number of times in
life when this question becomes even more important. Are the young bride
and groom running away from parental control and authority or are they
moving toward a mature relationship, a sound plan and realistic enough
dreams. Are they thinking “escape!” or are they motivated by a genuine
friendship and love for each other? Is the college bound student going
so far away from home because the school truly is the best for him or
her, or is the plan to put as much distance between them and their
parents as they can…and for what reasons? And of people who are about to
retire. Are they retiring in order to put an end to a working life that
has never given or is now giving them little to no satisfaction? Or are
they retiring into something…something that they are excited
about…something that gives them purpose and a reason to get up each
morning?
It is often difficult to understand our own feelings at times,
especially when there are so many other things happening in our lives,
demanding our attention. We are often blind to the power of our emotions
and don’t always realize when we are allowing ourselves to be pulled in
one direction or another.
There were Israelites leaving Egypt
who were obviously unaware of what
was driving them. Surely some saw what God had just done. Their
confidence in their having to leave, in their ultimate escape, certainly
grew as the plagues God sent mounted against the stubborn, recalcitrant
Pharaoh and his hapless people. Some may even have allowed themselves to grow
excited by the prospects that Moses was explaining to them—that God was returning them to a land that would again
be their own. But, most, with less vision, probably figured that anything
would be better than their daily routine of beatings by their Egyptian
taskmasters and having
to slave away at making bricks under the hot, brutal Egyptian sun.
In the playing out of our lives, I think that most of us would agree
that our emphasis should be more on the why’s of our lives, the
purposes, the “goings to,” than the “runnings from.”
If we know and understand what our goals are and can affirm that what
motivates us to achieve them has integrity and is based on true facts
and evidence, we can, in a very real way, consider ourselves to be truly
blessed. Keeping in constant touch with our God can help mitigate our
confusions and set us on a more certain path in life. We each crave
certitude in life. /Parashat “BO”/ shows us that the only real way
through the labyrinth of conflicting motivations is grounded in
something divine. It is for this reason that the Psalmist warned us not
to put our trust in princes but to trust in God, the source of truth,
honesty, morality and certitude.
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