Key To Peace

KEY TO PEACE

By Rabbi Isaac Jeret

Commentary on Parashat Lech Lecha

October 28, 2009

Reprinted from: THE JEWISH JOURNAL OF LOS ANGELES

In most instances, families relocate due to a measure of dissatisfaction with where they live currently and a degree of hope for where they might arrive. The Torah portion of Lech-Lecha presents the beginning of the epic Israel-bound family journey of the Jewish people. It is distinct in various respects from all other family relocations recorded in the Book of Genesis or elsewhere in the Torah. A journey that continues still today, it retains central purposes that date back to Abraham’s formative travels even as its unfolding, historic itinerary inspires travelogue entries and reflective commentary with each passing day of the Jewish present.

A comparison of all other family relocations in the Book of Genesis to Abraham’s formative journey to Israel reveals its uniqueness. The departure of Adam and Eve from Eden was at least as much about leaving Eden as arriving elsewhere. The builders of the Tower of Babel were scattered from the Babylonian region of Shinar rather than being sent anywhere else in particular. Noah fled the flood. Abraham’s, Jacob’s, Joseph’s and Jacob’s other sons’ journeys beyond what would come to be known as the land of Israel were initiated due to mortal dangers they faced living in Canaan.

However, Abraham’s journey to Canaan is not presented in the Torah as an escape from anywhere, for any reason. Its purpose is identified solely with the merits and blessings associated with its commanded destination.

To ensure that Abraham, his descendants and all who would later read this story understood the unique purpose of Abraham’s relocation-journey and its enduring implications, God pronounced to Abraham that his descendants’ destiny would be bound inextricably and forever to the special land to which God would guide him and that great blessing would accompany this bond. To ensure that the precise territory constituting the Israel that would exist was just as unambiguous, God articulated the territory’s borders and had Abraham walk the entire land.

Ever since, the Jewish people have been bound to the land of Israel as heirs to God’s promises and blessings to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their families. Jews have lived in Israel, with a continuous presence, for at least 2,500 years, possibly dating back as far as the time of Joshua. And, the Israel in which Jews have resided throughout most of this period — the same Israel promised biblically to our forbears — includes Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus and Ramallah, areas assumed by many to constitute the heart of a future Palestinian state.

Any honest broker of peace between the State of Israel and her Arab neighbors must acknowledge publicly a fundamental historical truth and require Arab and Muslim leaders to do the same, for most Israelis to feel that their claim to Israel is affirmed and that their security is an overriding concern. This fact and its implications derive from Abraham’s formative journey and were ignored by President Obama in his Cairo speech and since then.

The land of Israel promised biblically to the Jews and inhabited by Jews more so than anyone else since then includes Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as much as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Eilat. Consequently, the Holocaust and violence prior to it may have been why many Jews fled Europe, and it might have been why most nations voted in 1947 to allow for a Jewish state, but it constitutes neither the reason nor the purpose underlying the historic Jewish return to Israel. Jews didn’t happen upon Israel in 1948, settling for a location that seemed easy and safe. Rather, those who returned home to Israel, before or after the Holocaust, did so despite the significant challenges they knew awaited them.

Public recognition of the historic and continual Jewish claim to the entire land of Israel by President Obama and, following his lead, by Arab and Muslim leaders genuinely seeking peace with Israel is a prerequisite, both theoretically and practically, to any final agreement in which Arab and Muslim leaders would accept a permanent and Jewish State of Israel, regardless of its final borders. It would acknowledge that what constitutes “occupied territories” for Israel’s enemies are “disputed territories” to most Israelis. In truth, given that Israel “occupied” Judea and Samaria in a defensive 1967 war aimed at destroying the Jewish state, referring to them as “disputed” rather than simply annexing them should seem generous on Israel’s part.

Arab and Muslim leaders could join with Israel’s leaders in a mutual recognition of historical claims rather than denying Israel’s right to exist. Israel would be invited to give away land that is rightfully its own rather than returning it, as though anyone lay greater claim to it, in exchange for an enduring peace.

An honest accounting of history may be the key to determining whether there exist today authentic voices of compromise among Arab and Muslim leaders and whether Israel should see fit to forgo its historic and legitimate claim to any portion of its land, at this juncture, in pursuit of peace. President Obama can turn this key.

Invocation - AIPAC Summit Gala Reception

INVOCATION

AIPAC SUMMIT CONFERENCE – GALA RECEPTION & DINNER

by Rabbi Isaac Jeret

La Costa Resort / San Diego, CA

October 19, 2009

She-Hekheyanu V'Ki-manu V'Hee-gee-yanu La-Z'man Ha-Zeh ... God has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us unto this moment ...

With this magnificent blessing, Jewish families and communities have marked throughout the ages occasions of celebration and moments of purpose, acknowledging the uniqueness of each for the individuals participating and the precise circumstances at hand, neither of which would ever have aligned before, as they would never arrive again, and the specific consequences of their interaction unknowable before beforehand and impossible ever to generate again.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are blessed to live in the greatest country ever imagined in the course of human history. And, indeed, every American endeavor of enduring virtue has benefited greatly from the unique wisdom, born of the unique experiences of the vast array of the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses who sought refuge on America's shores.

Only several decades ago, our country's Jewish community was the epitome of these tired, poor, and huddled masses, often barely escaping the tyrannical and genocidal clutches of hateful ideologies and tyrants whom, we learned from our unique historical experience as Jews, far more often than not, tend to seek to enact their threats against the objects of their hate and scorn if ever they achieve the means and are afforded the opportunity to do so.

My friends, as leadership is valuable and significant only in situational context, so is wisdom. Thus, when we enter ™the halls of Congress, visiting with respected leaders and their knowledgeable staff-members, sharing our passion for the U.S./Israel relationship, lobbying our representatives regarding important legislation, and urging an appreciation on the part of our elected officials for the nuances of the Jewish State's noble struggle to survive so many thousands of miles away, we do so not as American citizens biased and clouded by a dual allegience, and thereby unable to see clearly that which is in our country's best interests, as cynics and even bigots would suggest of us. Rather we do so, first and foremost - and always, as proud and devoted Americans, contributing our unique wisdom - born of our own experiences over the last 2,000 years of our exile from our Homeland - to the task of ensuring that America identifies swiftly and with clarity who our friends are, who our mortal enemies are, and what we must do, right now, to ensure that we defend our country and those with whom we ally ourselves in the spirit and challenge of liberty and toward the strategic virtue of defending it against those who seek its destruction and our own.

Barukh Ata Ado-nai Elohei-nu Melekh HaOlam Shehecheyanu V'Kee'ma-nu V:ee-gee-yanu La-Z'man HaZeh ... Blessed are You, God, our God, Sovereign of all time and space, Who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us unto this moment - and, Who may well have brought us here to America for this very moment, a moment requiring the wisdom earned of a unique Jewish historical journey, a moment in which our country may need Israel as much as Israel relies upon the United States, a moment that needs us - right now - to make the difference that only we American Jews can make. - Amen!