This shabbat is shabbat hazon, the shabbat when we read Isaiahs vision of the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah (Isaiah 1). It contains the most painful verse in the Bible, sung not to the usual haftara cantillation, but to the special cantillation reserved for the Book of Lamentations: ובפרשכם כפיכם אעלים עיני מכם גם כי תרבו תפלה אינני שמע ידיכם דמים מלאו When you stretch out your hands to Me, I will turn My gaze away from you; Even if you multiply your prayers, I will not listen; Your hands are full of blood. (Isaiah 1:15) As the conflict in Gaza stretches into its fourth week, I will pray that this verse does not apply to us -- not now, not in this war. I pray that our cause is just and that our prosecution of that cause just. I pray that I can take refuge in the judgment of Amos Oz, a man of great moral seriousness, who said yesterday that this action is justified, even if in some points excessive, and in the judgment of all those whose moral compass I respect -- teachers, rabbis, friends -- who assure us that it is necessary. I will pray that I am right to stand with Israel, as I do -- because the devastation and suffering caused by this war is almost too much to fathom. And I will be grateful once again for this beautiful tradition of ours, that even in the midst of terrible, necessary wars, forces us to confront these questions, to reconsider our judgments, to consider and reconsider the basis on which we act. שבת של שלוה אם לא של שלום. A shabbat of tranquility, if not of peace.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 23:15:37 +0000
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