We Lost of Piece of our Soul

A few years ago while traveling in Kenya, our interfaith group was asked to preach at various churches in the region where we do our work.  On Sunday morning we got dropped off at various places and after lunch we gathered on the bus to head to our afternoon meeting.  As the only Jew, I was happy to see my friend Shariq, who is Muslim and the only other non-Christian traveling with us.  I asked him how it was for him to speak at the church and he told me he preached, if you will, about the Muslim ideal that if you save a single life you save the entire world.  My response was "I love that line, especially in the original Hebrew".  The joke was taken for what it was, the clear connection between the ethical teaching of Judaism that fed the early writings of Islam and drove much of Mohammed's understanding of the world.  So when I think of the animosity today that is driven by Islam when it comes to Israel and even to all Jews I weep.

I wept even more yesterday.  Three young men had their lives taken as the latest result of the "Had Gadya Machine" as it is called by the great Yehuda HaLevi.  Three Jewish teens were killed after being held by Hamas on the West Bank.  This act of cowardly terrorism had unified most of Israel and world Jewry at first wishing for the safe return of the boys and now mourning their loss.  I wonder how a tradition that borrowed so much from the pillars that hold up Judaism can so easily ignore them for the sake of killing Jews.  I wonder just want that means in the grand scheme of things.  

The first thing I read about it was a Facebook post from a teacher and friend Amichai Lau-Levi.  He wrote from Israel:  

  אנא אל תיקום דמם. ה׳ אמת.ברוך דיין    Please God do not revenge their blood.   

It was a powerful statement, because in the moment I read it I found myself struggling with a growing anger.  An anger that I can't find a way to fully wrap my head around.  As a member of the Jewish community who sits comfortable in the MidWest of the US, I can't begin to understand what life is like for those who have to sleep at times in bomb shelters, who have lived with the idea of pizza shops blowing up and now have buried three teens, simply because they want to live in the land of Israel with their families.  Later in the day I read more from Lau-Levi, a man who has been helping us see our ancient tradition with modern eyes but focusing on the message of love that we inherited through the ages.  He wrote:  

I personally see no point in vengeance, in endless circles of retribution. There is no justice to be gained, even when decisive measures will and must be made to bring the murderers to trial and to stop such future actions. More blood will not bring the boys back. This is just one person’s opinion. A former soldier, so tired of recycled rage.  There must be another way.

There must be something more we can do.  But today I still feel the anger.  In part because there are so many of our  people throughout the history of the modern state of Israel  who have sought real peace.  Who are voices trying to rise above the din of hate who take up the cause of the Palestinian people, and every time we seem to feel that we can move forward we are punched in the face by a heinous act like this.  

Tonight I am angry, for the lives of the boys, for my friend who just kissed her daughter good-bye as she joins the ranks of many young Americans who make Aliyah, for the people I met on the West Bank and in Jerusalem who have been struggling for peace.  But most of all I am angry because it is stories like this that make me want to feel less compassion, who make me want to throw my hands up and say "they win"  if they want a fight let's bring it to them.  I don't want to be that guy.  I don't want to feel that negativity, I don't want to hate. 

In a few minutes I will join my local Jewish community for a service of remembrance.  Perhaps that will help me find the way to give up the angry feelings.  Maybe it will pass as I read more from people who want to truly seek a solution and not just turn the crank on HaLevi's machine.  Perhaps I need to find a way to think around this.  But I will indulge myself a few moment of the anger and then seek hope.  Help me find it.