At War Again
Dr. Erica Brown
January 1, 2009

"We did not rejoice in battle.  We wanted nothing to do with war.  It was forced upon us by countries and by organizations that wanted - and some of which still want - to destroy us.  We ended every war as victtors.  We came out of every war wounded.  The scars of war stay with us."
Yitzchak Rabin

Here we are again, at war in Israel. There has not been one decade in Israel's 60 years that it has been without war.  At a time of New Year parties world-over, news in Israel dulls any celebratory mood. Our prayers and hopes are with Israeli soldiers and innocent victims - on both sides - of this ongoing struggle for land and identity. We pray that abducted soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza will be returned to his family.  Peace seems a little ambitious to pray for right now, but it is always regarded as the first and most important objective, as we read in Deuteronomy 20:10, "When approaching a town to attack it, first offer them peace." The choice then becomes theirs.

Yitzchak Rabin, former Israeli prime minister and himself a victim of violence, delivered the words above on November 18, 1993 in Montreal Canada before the Council of Jewish Federations. Uttered more than 15 years ago, the words still hold their meaning, perhaps now more than ever. War fatigue has set in, and we are a
people tired of going to war. We will never, however, be tired of supporting those who go to war. What Rabin captures here is not only the futility of war - even when you are the victor - but the wounds that never leave us. These wounds affect the soldiers directly and others in the line of fire. But they also impact our notions of
collective identity. We are a beleaguered nation who has to be prepared to fight in wars, even those forced upon us. We understand the lasting scars, as Golda Meir so painfully and famously said following the Six Day War, "When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be
harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons."  

There is another spiritual perspective to add to this pain. It is this: violence that is done in taking a life is a perversion of what it means to live in God's image and respect others as created in the divine image. Genesis 9:6 reminds us that, "Whoever sheds the blood of a human being by human beings shall his blood be shed, for in the divine image did God make humanity." Humans lose their humanity when they fail to take every life seriously.

Whenever there is war, there is also the naïve hope that this will be the last of wars. Elie Wiesel, whose writing is haunted by war, put it this way in Beggar in Jerusalem:  

"One more war. The last. They always say that. Let us fight so as to fight no more. Let us kill so as to conquer death. Who knows, perhaps Cain himself aspired to be not just the first murderer in history but the last."

One more war. The last. Maybe not. But as we ring in 2009, we understand that the suffering on the other side of the Atlantic is our suffering as well and that we as a people stand together so that no matter the forces
against us, we never lose our humanity or our dignity.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dr. Erica Brown is the Director of Adult Education at The Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning and Director of the Jewish Leadership Institute at The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.  She is also an adjunct professor at American University and George Washington University, was a Jerusalem Fellow and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation. Brown lectures widely on subjects of Jewish interest and leadership, in addition to extensive writing in journals of education and Jewish studies. She has chapters in "Jewish Legal Writings by Women, Torah of the Mothers," and "Wisdom from All of My Teachers" and writes a weekly internet essay on topics of Jewish interest. Brown is the author of the book, "Inspired Leadership: A Jewish Perspective" and co-author of "The Case for Jewish Peoplehood."  This article first appeared on the web site of The Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning.