RABBI SIMEON KOLKO Insights into war and peace

Golda Meir, the distinguished Jewish leader and former prime minister of Israel, once said the following in regard to the human toll of the Arab-Israeli conflict: "We can eventually forgive you [meaning the Arabs] for killing our children; we cannot, however, forgive you for forcing our children to kill."
I cite this well-known statement because of the cultural and religious window it provides into the Jewish attitude toward the pursuit of peace, and its urging upon us a perspective that is broad enough to consider the costs of waging war in the fullest sense of that term.
Dilemma: Those involved simultaneously in the necessity of self-defense and the pursuit of peace walk a practical, political and ethical tightrope, which requires balancing a variety of competing, equally valid considerations.
The Rabbis brilliantly capture this dilemma in commenting upon a seeming difficulty in Genesis 32:8. The text, in describing the mind-set of Jacob as he prepares to encounter his brother Esau after years of estrangement, states that Jacob was "greatly afraid and was distressed."
Knowing that there is not a redundant word in the entire Bible, the Rabbis ask why it was necessary to depict Jacob as being both afraid and distressed. They answer that he was afraid lest he be killed; and was distressed that he not become a killer. Jacob was aware, in the interpretation of the Rabbis, that the dangers he faced were twofold: the risk to his physical well-being if his brother Esau prevailed in whatever confrontation might occur between them; and the risk to his spiritual well-being if, in the course of defending himself, he should become indistinguishable from the enemy he sought protection from.
From a religious perspective, the pursuit of peace is about more than the invocation of catchall mantras, designed to make us feel warm and cuddly inside. It is, rather, a process, which insists that no realm of human endeavor, including the waging of war, can be conducted in the absence of the accumulated insight and wisdom of our respective faith-communities. It is the height of moral myopia to regard religion as being opposed to the exercise of legitimate rights of self-defense. It is the ultimate act of moral abdication to view these tragic, but necessary components of the human experience as being somehow beyond the sphere of religious values and doctrine.
Insights into conflict: How then, can religion be a part of the solution of the seemingly intractable problem of co-existence among the various members of the human family? What insights does religion have to contribute to these urgent ethical and political problems? The most important insight that the Jewish tradition offers in the resolution of these matters is the reminder that all of humanity shares the distinction of having been created in the image of God. Those searching for a theoretical basis for the entitlement of all human beings to basic human rights need look no further than the radical, faith-based claim that our dignity stems from having been created in the image of the Divine. It requires no further validation, and is not dependent on the display of qualities or attributes on our part, which might be construed as demonstrating that we have in a certain sense earned the rights we are claiming for ourselves. Those whose authority is decidedly other than divine cannot legitimately take from us that which is given by an act of divine kindness.
The final insight that I would offer from the Jewish tradition stems from an understanding of the etymology of the Hebrew word Shalom. Shalom is variously understood as meaning peace, hello, goodbye. All of these are indeed correct, popular uses of the word. However, it is important to understand that the root of the word shalom is in fact the Hebrew word shalem, meaning "complete or whole." It does not require that one be a linguistic scholar to understand that there surely is a profound connection between the quest for peace and the search for wholeness. Those truly in search of peace are looking for the disparate aspects of their increasingly complex lives to be made whole and intact. The search for peace is, on the one hand, a desire for a condition where tension is absent. In its most profound sense, it is about much more than the absence of conflict. It is about finding the ingredients that have the capacity to transform our lives into a tapestry of meaning, depth and contentment.
My best wishes to all of the members of our community for a holiday season of peace.
Warmly, Rabbi Simeon Kolko.
XRabbi Simeon Kolko is the rabbi at Ohev Tzedek-Shaarei Torah Congregation in Boardman.