"The End of the World"

April 24, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     A kind of "religious fever" infected the Land of Israel in the time of King Herod. Because Rome was so powerful, and Herod was so deep in the pocket of Rome, Judeans could no longer seek justice through politics and seldom received justice from the courts. Many Judeans outwardly seethed with ant-Roman feeling, while turning inwardly to their deep faith that God would save God's Chosen People.

     There were, however, some rebellious Judeans who fervently wished to see the kingdom of Israel restored, who wanted nothing less than for the Romans to be entirely removed from Judea. These political rebels were somewhat like the Maccabees and a lot like the Freedom Fighters for Israel that arose in the pre-State days when the British controlled Palestine. Their ambitions were for freedom of religion and independence for the Jews.

     Other rebels behaved like thieves and highwaymen, using the idea of independence as an excuse for attacking wealthy Sadducees and robbing Romans on the road. And there were also rebels who believed that upsetting the Romans and the Judeans would bring on the ultimate confrontation that they sought -- they were known as Sicarii or "dagger men." Slipping into crowds in the cities, especially in Jerusalem, they indiscriminately murdered Romans and Judeans using daggers kept hidden beneath their cloaks.

     Altogether, these political extremists and rebels were called Zealots. To be clear, there were never many Zealots, but the few eventually succeeded in mobilizing the mass of Judeans who felt oppressed by Rome. The people desperately needed the Zealot's faith that, if only they would go to war, then God would send the Messiah to sweep Rome away with a single breath of fire. So it was the Zealots who tipped the scales, making the Jewish wars against Rome inevitable. Unfortunately, though war came, the warrior Messiah failed to appear and the end was destruction and devastation for the people of the Land of Israel.

     Today, the situation in the State of Israel is equally complex. As always, it is a case of two Jews equaling three opinions. Politics and religion compete for the hearts of the people in Israel today, just as they did in the time of Herod. It is difficult to separate right from wrong, whether in the courts or in the synagogues or in the streets or in the fields.

     One fine day in the 1990s, a group of liberal Israeli rabbis organized police protection and volunteered themselves to hike up a West Bank hillside to help local Palestinians from the town of Ain Abbus to harvest their olives. There would normally be no need for police or for volunteers to help the Palestinians with their olive groves, but radical Jewish settlers living nearby claimed the hilltops as their property, even though the olive trees had been harvested there by the Palestinians of Ain Abbus for many generations. The radical settlers said that God had called on them to settle there, and they resorted to both threats and violence to prevent the Palestinians from picking their olives.

     Ironically, the liberal Jewish group called Rabbis for Human Rights -- more than 90 Reform, Orthodox, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis and rabbinical students, all Israeli citizens, attempted to peacefully intervene to block the radical Jews and to help the Palestinians. The rabbis believe their organization should uphold the Jewish tradition by teaching moral responsibility and biblical concern for "the stranger in your midst," even if this means facing danger. And there was danger, for members of the rabbis' group and other volunteers had sometimes been attacked by the radical settlers.

     But on this day, as they arrived at the hilltop to harvest the olives, the rabbis, the volunteers, the Palestinians, and the police squad were greeted by a shocking, unexpected, tragic scene. Hundreds of olive trees had been hacked to pieces with axes. There was nothing left to pick.

     Fawzi Houssein's family had owned this field. He fell to his knees, crying, "Look at this!... It's the end of the world."

     The Israeli police took a statement from Houssein. While he was speaking, the rabbis noticed that a single radical Jewish settler had come to watch the suffering. They might have confronted him, they might have attacked him as he had probably attacked the trees, but the rabbis' group believed in nonviolence, so they quietly walked away, sighing and shaking their heads.

     A reporter stopped Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the director of the group, to ask him what he thought of this destruction. The rabbi said, "The Torah that I read from says do not trespass, it says do not cut down the fruit trees. Specifically, we're taught not to act with violence."

     In truth, the Israeli government had promised to remove the illegal settlement near the olive grove. But politics and violence had stalled the peace plan and the settlement remained. One member of the Knesset came that day to check on the olive harvest. When he saw the ruined trees, all he could say was, "I can't believe Jews committed such a crime."

     Fares Ahmed Abu Rothman, a schoolteacher who had lost 65 trees, waved an empty bag he had planned to fill with olives. "My father and my grandfather planted this grove, and I find it cut," he said as he choked back tears. "I condemn everything."

     The whole group hiked to another hillside, a little farther from the illegal settlement of radicals, where some olive trees remained. The Israeli volunteers took their places alongside the Palestinians on that rocky hillside to help in the harvest as the Israeli police stood by to protect them.

     We celebrate the 61st anniversary of the birth of the State of Israel tonight. And we have much to be proud of as Jews. The accomplishments of the Israelis in creating a garden where there was a struggling scrabble of trees and rocks and swamps is indubitable. The miracle of a restored Jewish political system, miraculously a democracy, still astounds us. Yet, we always break a glass at every wedding and spill ten drops of blood-red wine at every Passover Seder to remind us that we should remember that every miracle brings us not only good but responsibility. The Jews of Herod's time should not have followed the Zealots to the path of violence and revolt, the path of the Jewish future was better served by the small group of sages who left Jerusalem behind and settled peacefully in the small town of Lod. From them, the Mishnah would grow and from the Mishnah the Talmud would grow. Because of them, Judaism would survive not just in the Land of Israel but throughout the world and throughout the ages. If people in Israel today have a choice it is between the violent ways and means of the radical settlers who teach that God is on their side and groups like the Rabbis for Human Rights who try to find ways and means for Israelis and Palestinians to live and work together.

     The choice is symbolized by the olive trees on that hillside. No one benefits from destruction. The celebration of Israel's Independence must focus on the building up of the land and its people -- all the land and all its people. And let us say: Amen.