Atonement now
On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews repeat a litany of sins that they might have committed that they now ask forgiveness for. Some of them are common sins, such as "committing false witness against a neighbor," others are more abstruse, and hardly apply in today's world. There are a few specific sins that Jews need to add to this list that they have in fact committed in the recent past.
For example, "God forgive me for the sin of leaving my family defenceless." If it were considered a major sin among religious Jews to leave their family defenceless, maybe more of them would have organized themselves and fought back when Jews were the object of hatred, murder and destruction in Europe in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The fact is that, even though it may have been unavoidable, the Jews as a civilization and a people were utterly defenceless against the depredations of all the other tribes/countries of Europe. The fact is also that some Jews did fight back and did survive, so it was not impossible, although certainly very difficult. Since I was not there during WWII I cannot really say. But I was once told by a well-meaning German that the reason the Jews were massacred was because they never put up any resistance. If they had they would not have been such an easy target for extermination.
During the time of Stalin's Gulags in the 1930-40s there were many national groups imprisoned, including many Japanese in the far east. They were treated abominably, like everyone else. So they went on a hunger strike, they sat down en masse, thousands of them and refused to work until their conditions were improved. The Communists took 5 or 10 out at a time and executed them. But, the Japanese prisoners remained unbowed. Eventually the Camp Administration gave in and improved their conditions as long as they worked very hard. So they won, but it was a limited victory, because many of them were worked to death. Nevertheless their example stirred hope in all the prisoners (I believe I read this in Solzhenitsyn). I am not saying that if the Jews had done this it would have made any difference, but organized resistance can take many forms, and among the Jews it was almost nonexistent.
Another possible sin is: "the sin that I have committeed of naievete in the face of evil." There are many Jews in the Diaspora who being liberal in mind and spirit say "why can't you negotiate with Hamas and Hizbollah, since everyone knows that eventually there has to be a negotiated agreement, and one always negotiates with one's enemy." But, this ignores the fact that these terrorist groups do not want to negotiate with us, but rather they want to kill us (yes, actually all of us). Not only don't they recognize Israel's right to exist, but they hate Jews and accept the use of terrorism and violence against children, women and men as a legitimate means of achieving their goal. As an Egyptian journalist wrote recently in Al Ahram, "there is no way to negotiate with Hamas if it remains Hamas, if it ceases to be Hamas then maybe Israel could negotiate with them."
This sin also applies to the wildly inappropriate case of some American Jewish teens, who decided that rather than collect money simply to help the Jews of northern Israel who had been under attack from 4,000 Hizbollah rockets, to show how balanced they are, they would collect money for both sides and distribute it equally to Lebanese victims of the war. Now, most of the Lebanese victims of the war were Hizbollah gunmen, but even though there were many non-combatant victims, they too were mostly Shia, and they generally support Hizbollah and hate Israelis and Jews. What is the message being sent by this so-called "gesture," that these American Jewish teens are incredibly naieve and are giving money to the enemy of their own people. This would produce some chuckles in Nasrallah's underground bunker, and in Damascus and Teheran.
In order to survive the Jewish people need to take their plight very seriously and to take a sacred oath never to be defenceless and naieve in the face of evil again.
For example, "God forgive me for the sin of leaving my family defenceless." If it were considered a major sin among religious Jews to leave their family defenceless, maybe more of them would have organized themselves and fought back when Jews were the object of hatred, murder and destruction in Europe in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The fact is that, even though it may have been unavoidable, the Jews as a civilization and a people were utterly defenceless against the depredations of all the other tribes/countries of Europe. The fact is also that some Jews did fight back and did survive, so it was not impossible, although certainly very difficult. Since I was not there during WWII I cannot really say. But I was once told by a well-meaning German that the reason the Jews were massacred was because they never put up any resistance. If they had they would not have been such an easy target for extermination.
During the time of Stalin's Gulags in the 1930-40s there were many national groups imprisoned, including many Japanese in the far east. They were treated abominably, like everyone else. So they went on a hunger strike, they sat down en masse, thousands of them and refused to work until their conditions were improved. The Communists took 5 or 10 out at a time and executed them. But, the Japanese prisoners remained unbowed. Eventually the Camp Administration gave in and improved their conditions as long as they worked very hard. So they won, but it was a limited victory, because many of them were worked to death. Nevertheless their example stirred hope in all the prisoners (I believe I read this in Solzhenitsyn). I am not saying that if the Jews had done this it would have made any difference, but organized resistance can take many forms, and among the Jews it was almost nonexistent.
Another possible sin is: "the sin that I have committeed of naievete in the face of evil." There are many Jews in the Diaspora who being liberal in mind and spirit say "why can't you negotiate with Hamas and Hizbollah, since everyone knows that eventually there has to be a negotiated agreement, and one always negotiates with one's enemy." But, this ignores the fact that these terrorist groups do not want to negotiate with us, but rather they want to kill us (yes, actually all of us). Not only don't they recognize Israel's right to exist, but they hate Jews and accept the use of terrorism and violence against children, women and men as a legitimate means of achieving their goal. As an Egyptian journalist wrote recently in Al Ahram, "there is no way to negotiate with Hamas if it remains Hamas, if it ceases to be Hamas then maybe Israel could negotiate with them."
This sin also applies to the wildly inappropriate case of some American Jewish teens, who decided that rather than collect money simply to help the Jews of northern Israel who had been under attack from 4,000 Hizbollah rockets, to show how balanced they are, they would collect money for both sides and distribute it equally to Lebanese victims of the war. Now, most of the Lebanese victims of the war were Hizbollah gunmen, but even though there were many non-combatant victims, they too were mostly Shia, and they generally support Hizbollah and hate Israelis and Jews. What is the message being sent by this so-called "gesture," that these American Jewish teens are incredibly naieve and are giving money to the enemy of their own people. This would produce some chuckles in Nasrallah's underground bunker, and in Damascus and Teheran.
In order to survive the Jewish people need to take their plight very seriously and to take a sacred oath never to be defenceless and naieve in the face of evil again.
posted by Jack Cohen at 1:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home