Our parasha for this week continues
the story of Jacob. Of all of our Biblical ancestors, with the exception of
David, Jacob leads the most tumultuous life. He struggles with his brother in
the womb, deceives his father, steals the blessing reserved for the first born
and must flee his home to escape the anger of his brother who has threatened to
kill him. He is in turn deceived by his father-in-law, Laban, into working
three times longer for his wife Rachel as he had agreed. He marries two sisters
who are rivals with one another for his affection, takes their maidservants as
wives as well, and sires 12 sons and a daughter. His daughter is kidnapped and
raped and his sons’ violent response to that event make him fear for his own
life and the lives of his loved ones.
Our Torah reading opens with the
words, “Jacob settled in the land”. From the use of the word, “settled” the
rabbis deduce that Jacob finally believed that, after all his troubles, he had
finally found peace and tranquility in his life. The midrash has G-d criticizing
Jacob for asking for too much. “Isn’t it
enough to know that the righteous will have tranquility in Messianic times? You
expect peace and tranquility in this world as well?” In fact, no sooner does Jacob “settle down”
than his favorite son Joseph is sold into slavery and his much sought after
tranquility is shattered.
Peace and tranquility is what the Jewish people
have pursued for the longest of times. Israel was founded in 1948 with the hope
that having a Jewish state for the Jewish people would normalize our condition
and allow us to take our place among the family of nations. We would abandon our status as “guests” in
other people’s homelands and “settle down” in a home of our own – Israel. But
like Jacob, our hoped for peace and tranquility has not materialized. In many
parts of the world anti-Semitism – the irrational hatred of Jews – has simply
been transformed into anti-Zionism – the irrational hatred of Israel.
That is not to say that there has
not been progress made toward peace. In 1978 Israel signed a peace agreement
with Anwar Sadat of Egypt. That peace turned out colder than had been hoped,
but it constituted peace nonetheless, and it has held. In 1993 the Oslo accords
were signed. Although the hoped for peace failed to fully materialize, the Oslo
accords did lead to mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. This
constituted another historically important step. A year later Jordan and Israel signed a peace
treaty and each country opened its borders to the other. There were other
serious efforts toward peace in 2000 and 2006, but the parties failed to reach
an agreement.
One of the most contentious issues
that is left “unsettled” is the status of Jerusalem. The UN partition plan of
1947 envisioned Jerusalem being a “corpus separatum”, Latin for “separated
body”. This meant that Jerusalem would be placed under UN sovereignty as an
international city. Ben Gurion and the provisional Jewish government accepted
the plan – the Arabs, who rejected the idea of partitioning the land between a
Jewish and an Arab state altogether – rejected the idea. After the War for
Independence in 1948, Jordan ended up holding the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel
ended up with the Western part of the city, which they declared their capital,
with a “no-man’s land” dividing the Jordanian held side from the Israeli held
side. Under Jordanian rule the Jewish population of the Old City, which at the
time constituted a majority was expelled, synagogues in the Old City were blown
up, Jewish sites desecrated, and Jews forbidden from entering.
Although the State of Israel
declared the Western part of the city as their capital, the world never
accepted it, holding to the UN Resolution that this area should be under
international jurisdiction. That sentiment did not change when Israel captured
the Old City in the 1967 war and declared the city as a united Jerusalem.
Still, in 1980 there were 13
countries with embassies in Jerusalem. They all fled Jerusalem for Tel Aviv when
the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, passed what is called a Basic Law which is equivalent
in our country to a Constitutional Amendment.
The Basic Law stated that the city of Jerusalem would be the “complete
and united capital of Israel”. Today
there are no foreign embassies in Jerusalem. The international consensus now is
that the future status of Jerusalem needs to be decided upon by Israel and the
Palestinians.
This is precisely why President
Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is so controversial. The
United States has broken with precedent by seeming to decide on the status of
Jerusalem outside of the framework of negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians. And while it may be emotionally satisfying for some to see the
United States ratify Israel’s position on the status of Jerusalem, it is
unclear how this in and of itself contributes to peace in the region. At best
it has no effect in that it offers no blueprint as to how we may proceed along the
long road towards peace. At worst it
inflames the passions of Muslims around the world and makes that road all the
more difficult. It makes it more difficult for the United States to appear like
an honest broker for peace. It is also hard
to understand how it promotes our country’s interests in the region or around
the world.
A few hours after the President’s
announcement American rabbis, including myself, received an Anti-Defamation
League Security Warning saying that the announcement “is engendering strong
reaction in the Middle East and there is potential for extreme reaction on the
ground in the United States as well.” How does this enhance our security here
in the United States? In many ways it
seems that the announcement has a very small “upside” and a very big “downside”.
Many early Zionists, most of whom
were secular Jews, were ambivalent about having the capital of a modern Israel
in Jerusalem. Herzl envisioned building a capital in the area of Haifa. A young
David Ben Gurion was uneasy about Jerusalem and the city’s fraught religious
history. Many of us today are discomfited by the lack of separation of “Church
and State” in Israel. This intertwining of religion and politics is mirrored in
Jerusalem, which is both the political capital of Israel and the religious
capital of Jews around the world. That makes things very, very complicated. Like
Jacob of yore, we hope that someday things will “settle down” and Israel can
live in peace, tranquility and security with her neighbors –not only in
Messianic times, but in this world of ours as well.
Shabbat Shalom
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