Synagogue Attack and “Wrong” Emotions

5 May 2019. The following blog post was written early last week. Death is now raining down on the people of southern Israel and Gaza. I feel devastated. I was also deeply saddened by the loss of Lori Gilbert-Kaye when I saw two images side by side: one with her and her daughter in joy together, and a second of her distraught daughter at her grave. May her memory be a blessing.

27 April 2019. It is Monday morning and I am tired. My Facebook feed is overflowing with expressions of collective grief and condemnation relating to the attack on a Chabad synagogue, in California on Saturday. Text messages of support from Arab Muslim friends are received and gratefully acknowledged. Otherwise, I say nothing publicly. A human being was murdered, a precious life taken, injuries and trauma inflicted in this attack on Jewish people from my community. It follows massacres in Sri Lanka, Christchurch, Pittsburgh and Egyptian places of worship. A jumble of thoughts and feelings flow through me, but I have no clarity.  

I feel like I am 7 years old again, at summer camp in the Catskill Mountains. My cousin was in hospital then. He had fallen out of a second floor window a week earlier. I was not terribly upset on that particular day. I remember vividly walking with my camp counselor between the house we were staying in at the infirmary when he told me I was a “Pay-Tzadik” (a bad person) because I was not sadder or praying for my cousin. I felt deeply ashamed and confused.

Of course, I agree with the people, both Jewish and not Jewish, who urged more love and less hate. It is just that the words have been said so many times that they sound hollow to me. It was the raw outpouring of grief and outrage across the world that I felt unsettled by.  

There was a time when I would be part of the choir. I would feel that this is not just any mass murder. No, this is an attack on us! When I was growing up in Brooklyn and we heard about a tragedy the first question was if there were any Jews involved. Now it was the Jews in a Chabad synagogue who were involved! Should I have felt like emoting like crazy? Instead I felt inclined to be quiet.

In the past my loyalty to my own people was questioned by others because of my empathy with Muslims. This time I questioned myself. Why am I not more upset about this?

It must be said that it is, generally, not useful to judge ourselves for having the “wrong” emotions. I care about hatred of Jews and I have done more to counter this than many of the emotional posters on social media. This matters more than the intensity of my current emotions.

Research into reducing social distance between members of minority communities and the “white” population found that it is possible “to improve children’s attitudes toward a racial outgroup without causing a negative impact on their feelings toward their [own] racial ingroup”¹. I wonder if that finding is entirely true for me. Does my identifying with Muslims and Aboriginal Australians and empathising with their plight make me less tuned in to my own people? I am not sure.

What is clear to me is that we must care for “our own communities”, however we define them, as well as for those from backgrounds that differ to ours². It is not for me, or any advocate for coexistence, to minimize the hatred against any group, and that includes Antisemitism in all its forms, which is wrong and must be combatted.

30 April 2019. The one emotion that I am both drawn to at this time to but also feel a little reluctant about is hatred toward bigotry itself. I think we learn from a young age that hatred is a bad emotion. The Torah commandment states “do not hate your brother in your heart”³. One commentator interprets the words “your brother” in this verse to indicate the degree to which we must avoid hatred. He argues that even the kind of hatred which is merely to feel a small measure of distance, e.g. to feel not quite like a brother, is still forbidden⁴.

Perhaps because of teachings such as these, hatred is a taboo emotion for many people. Yesterday I asked a group of Muslim and Jewish twelve year olds spending a day together: if hatred is so bad, why did God create hatred? The students replied that hatred was created for the purpose of being rejected, or as a contrast so we can better appreciate love.

It is nice to hear these sentiments but I think hatred has a purpose. Once, a gay student in a Together for Humanity program stated that she thought it was ok to hate her tormentors, her peers who taunted her and made her life miserable. One opinion in the Talmud suggests that hating evil doers has merit ⁵. Thankfully, this idea has been so heavily qualified and restricted according to one scholar ⁶, as to make it practically meaningless in terms of hating people. Instead we are taught to hate evil deeds ⁷ rather than sinners. I certainly and passionately hate, the twisted thinking, the indulgence of stupid lazy and insular thinking that legitimised the murder of a Jewish woman in a synagogue. I will continue to work to counter it.

Notes:

1.     Levi, S.R., West, T. L., Bigler, R.S., Karafantis, D.M., Ramizez, L., Velilla, E. (2005) Messages about the uniqueness and similarities of people: Impact on US Black and Latino youth. Journal of Applied Development Psychology 26 p.728

2.     Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14

3.     Leviticus 19:17

4.     Ohr Hachayim commentary, translation/adaptation is from Sefaria.org. His “approach to this verse is based on the unusual structure of the verse. It should have read: "לא תשנא בלבבך את אחיך, the word "in your heart" which we consider central should not have been written at the end. [Based on his understanding of Hebrew Grammar] the source of the hatred, the heart, should have been mentioned before the object of the hatred, a fellow Jew. ...the message is that a person should not think that the Torah only forbids the kind of hatred which is the forerunner of acts of revenge or violence but does not forbid harbouring ill feelings towards someone in one's heart. By mentioning the object of one's hatred immediately next to the prohibition to hate, the Torah made it clear that even the kind of hatred which is not related to acts of retaliation is forbidden. As soon as a person distances himself mentally and emotionally from his fellow Jew he begins to violate the prohibition of hatred as defined by the Torah in this verse”.

5.     Talmud Pesachim, 113b, Maimonides in Yad Hachazaka, Hil Rotzeach Ushmiras Nefesh 13:14

6.     Tanya, chapter 32

7.     Beruria in the Talmud, Brachot, 10a

Extremism: Sacred and Secular Approaches to Prevention

This post argues for both religious and secular approaches to preventing extremism. I am writing this against the backdrop of two incidents of Jewish violent extremism. In recent days a Palestinian home was firebombed: an 18-month-old Palestinian baby Ali Dawabsheh and his father were killed. Shira Banki, a 16 year old girl, who attended a gay pride parade in Jerusalem in support of social justice was stabbed and murdered by a man clearly identifiable as a devout religious Jew.

One response to this is that we need face up to “the contradiction of trying to live in the progressive modern world with a set of rules created by religious-political leaders thousands of years ago… we see rabbis trying to make the Torah fit a modern world. It just doesn't. It can't (1)” In this week’s Torah reading we have references to the Jewish people being the “chosen ones…out of all the nations that are upon the earth (2)”, disobedience of God’s law is equated with “the curse (3)”, and a command to “utterly destroy all the places where the nations, that you shall possess, worshipped their gods (4)”. 

Yesterday I spoke about Torah and tolerance to a group of teachers at my children’s school. I noted that the same religious books that the extremists use to justify their deplorable views and evil actions are read by many other people who reach completely different conclusions. 

Why do so many people reject the hateful conclusions that these texts in Judaism or in other faiths ostensibly call for? As I listened to prominent counter terrorism scholar, Boaz Ganor, at the 2015 Shalom College Graf Oration recently, it occurred to me that this question might not be a focus for leaders who ponder extremism.  In an Op-Ed in the Australian Jewish News (5) I quoted Professor Ganor assertion that counter-terrorism is essentially about ensuring that people who might commit a terrorist act, have neither the capability nor the motivation to do so. Yet, in an hour's presentation, Ganor, offered little more than one sentence on how to prevent the motivation for extremist violence.

I argued in my Op-Ed, that the absence of a clear direction to prevent this motivation for extremism, in Ganor’s talk confirms what I have learned working in this field. Ghaith Krayem, the current president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, was in the process of preparing a strategic plan for countering violent extremism when he confided in me that his discussions with academics had turned up little empirical data to guide communities in this task.

My conversations with Muslim religious leaders and youth, and my grappling with my own faith, suggest to me that there are religious solutions to the multi-faceted problem of extremism (which is not to suggest that extremism is simply a religious problem, it is not).

One approach is to examine texts that some claim legitimises violent extremism and consider the (multiple (6) ways that these have been understood traditionally. What are traditional approaches to interpretation of text and law? Ignorance of methodology of interpretation makes a person, with other social factors at play, vulnerable to being easily led (7).

A second approach is not just to look at one verse whose interpretation is being argued about but to consider it in the context of other relevant texts.  Discrimination in Judaism cannot be considered without the emphatic and repetitive calls not to mistreat the stranger (8).  

A third is to look at the motivations to do the right thing. One surprising motivation I heard from Muslim teenage boys was their fear of their mothers. Muslim leader Maha Abdo, told me that “there are only two factors these boys fear, God and their mothers (9)”. Judaism also demands fear of one’s mother, but western influences or ego seems to have dulled this for many young Jews, but it is apparently less so for the young Muslim I spoke to. Is the influence of mothers being considered by policy makers? My conversation with the NSW attorney general in Bondi last night confirmed that she was a surprised as I was about this phenomenon. 

In a Jewish context, I argued to the teachers at my children’s school I spoke to, for a role for secular knowledge and mores. I told them that this does not contradict the Torah. In fact the opposite is true. One verse in our reading calls the Jew to do “what is good and proper in the eyes of the Lord, your God (10)”. “Good” is interpreted as that which is objectively (11) good in the eyes of God, while “Proper” is defined subjectively, by the “eyes of man (12)”. This surprising traditional interpretation suggests that what is good in the “eyes of God”, (the words at the end of our verse), must include accountability to human (13) notions of ethics. If humans deem bigotry against Palestinians or gays as repugnant then God doesn’t approve of it either. 

A synthesis of religious and secular wisdom might be the best protection against hate and extremism.

1)    Facebook post by David Langsam, on 5/8/2015 https://www.facebook.com/zalman.kastel/posts/10153416053210470?comment_id=10153449411440470&notif_t=feed_comment
2)    Deuteronomy 14:2
3)    Deuteronomy 11:28
4)    Deuteronomy 12:2
5)    Australian Jewish News 07.08.2015
6)    I use the word multiple to refer to the diversity of interpretations within Jewish tradition which states that there are 70 faces in the Torah, I cannot speak for other faiths
7)    Conversation with Sheikh Ahmed Abdo at Sydney University 5.08.2015
8)    Exodus 22:20, and Exodus 23:9, this translation is from chabad.org. There are traditional sources that interpret the Hebrew word Ger,  גרwhich literally means stranger, as convert and focus their commentary on the particular situation of a convert, the commentary cited above relates as much to a newcomer to a religious community as it would to any marginalised person.  One beautiful thing I learned from my son’s teacher Rabbi Benji Simons after my talk, is the etymological roots of the word Ger גר , is גור, “Gur” which means fear. This is an allusion to the fear the stranger might experience without their previous networks that now make them more vulnerable in their new country. Alternatively the fear is xenophobia on the part of the locals.
9)    Conversation with Mrs. Maha Abdo at Bass Hill, 12.08.2015
10)    Deuteronomy 12:28
11)    Gur Arye, super-commentary on Rashi on Deuteronomy 12:28, explaining why Good is related to God’s perspective while straight or proper is linked to human perspectives
12)    Sifre, quoted in Rashi on Deuteronomy 12:28
13)    Yeriot Shlomo, super-commentary on Rashi on Deuteronomy 12:28, citing Pesikta for this parsha (Reay), Sifri and Yalkut

Political Correctness: Boat People, Balaam and Muslims

The objection to political correctness is often used to justify insensitive, divisive and destructive speech. A man approached me this week at the Synagogue to say he supports the relentless, harsh rhetoric in the media and by some of our politicians about Muslims and terrorism because he doesn’t believe in political correctness. I disagree. While political correctness should not be allowed to stifle purposeful debate or criticism of specific people who do wrong, speech that generalises or disproportionately emphasises the negative, is unjust and irresponsible.

Elizabeth Ban, a giant spirit who passed away last week, facilitated dialogue between Jews and Muslims. This helped people in both communities develop a more realistic as well as positive understanding of each other.

Elizabeth had one last task she wanted to accomplish before she died. She sought to change the conversation about asylum seekers in the Sydney Jewish community. She made a good start by initiating an event at which 60 members of the community connected with asylum seekers (1). The following joke might help continue her mission: Dark- skinned young comedian, Suren Jayemanne, gets asked if he is a “boat person”? No, he replies, I am a car person actually. I’m really into cars, I hate sailing. It reminds me of the 7 months it took me to get to Australia… A pause, a little shock, and then everyone laughed: the “othering” term, ‘boat person’, is made to sound ridiculous.

The danger of negative speech plays out in our Torah reading (2). A man named Balaam faced a dramatic and successful attempt, involving a talking ass (3), an angel and God himself, to silence him. 

The colourful story begins with the one-eyed (4) sorcerer, Balaam, being asked to curse the Jews. While Balaam is on his way to do this, an angel is sent to stop him, he is reprimanded by his donkey, and finally God, Himself, puts words in his mouth that force him to bless and praise the Jews instead of cursing them.

The story is puzzling. Why would it have mattered if Balaam cursed the Jews?! Surely, only God decides if curses can have any impact (5).

There are four ways to think about this, all useful.

a) The impact of the curses would have caused distress to the target of the curses. “People then and now are impressed by sorcerers. The Israelites in those times, particularly the women and children (6), would have been greatly affected by the maledictions of such a renowned sorcerer (7)”. The impact on the Muslim community, particularly the young people, of being continually demonised, is substantial, unjust and unhelpful.  

b) The impact of the curses, had they been allowed to be spoken, would have been to embolden the enemies of the Jews (8). Again, this has relevance. The relentless, harsh rhetoric by politicians and the media encourages citizens who harbour prejudice, to express it both verbally and physically. In the case of asylum seekers, it reinforces prejudice and antipathy to the “boat people”.

c) Words have a spiritual, self-fulfilling impact. Negative speech can elicit negative behaviour from the targeted person, while praise strengthens the positive elements and potential in the person being spoken about (9).

d) At the literal level, our tradition clearly sees the prevention of the curses as being a protective and loving act by God for the Jewish people. “But the Lord, your God, did not want to listen to Balaam. So the Lord, your God, transformed the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord, your God, loves you” (10).

Words matter. There are times when circumstances legitimately call for criticism of specific or even systemic problems and the people or groups responsible for these problems. Serious debate between philosophies, world views and even faiths can serve to tease out the truth, and this requires disregarding political correctness. However, often, negative speech serves no legitimate purpose while being quite destructive. If one has nothing nice to say, it might be time to “open both eyes” to see the full picture of both the admirable qualities alongside the faults, rather than seeking to verbally destroy like a “one- eyed” Balaam.


Notes

1)    http://torahforsociallyawarehasid.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/closing-empathy-gap-with-unlike.html
2)    Numbers 22-25
3)    Ralbag suggests that the whole encounter between Balaam and his donkey was a dream
4)    Talmud Sanhedrin 105a, states that Balaam was blind in one eye
5)    Ralbag
6)    The sexist implication in this explanation needs to be seen in the context of the time, centuries ago, when this was written.
7)    Ibn Kaspi, Joseph, Tirat Kesef, cited in Lebovitz, N, Studies in Bamidbar
8)    Abarbanel
9)    The Lubavitcher Rebbe
10)    Deuteronomy 23:6

Thou Shalt Not Hate…! Emotions on command? Kedoshim

Photo by Anita Sarkeesian, https://www.flickr.com/photos/puenteaz/4839483755/
reprinted under Creative Commons License Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

I feel unmotivated, resentment, anger and even despair sometimes.  ‘I shouldn’t feel like this’ is one thought that appears in my mind. I should be positive and forgiving (toward everyone other than me) is one approach.  But surely that is unreasonable. I feel how I feel and I can’t change it. 

The Torah’s prohibition against hate (1) suggests otherwise.  Clearly, ‘to hate is a choice!’ is implied.

Perhaps, it is not. One scholar reinterpreted the commandment against hate to mean something more concrete, “do not speak smoothly with your mouth” while you hate them in your hearts (2). This fits a pattern of mundane applications of emotional commandments. Love your fellow like yourself is applied as an instruction about not marrying without first seeing your prospective spouse because of the risk that eventually the husband might see something ugly and this would cause her to be despised  (3). Another application is not to do to your fellow what you dislike (4). I think there is great wisdom in this approach because it recognises that in a sense our emotions are involuntary responses to the world around us and that sometimes we cannot be instructed what to feel. Similarly, many would argue that people cannot be told what they are allowed to think. 

On the other hand, the Torah suggests, that our feelings are significantly influenced by our thoughts (5).  We are therefore legitimately called to guide our thoughts to be loving rather than hateful. 

Here is an example. I flew on a fairly empty flight from Dallas to Sydney recently. There was a devout Arabic Muslim couple with a baby seated in the row of four seats in front of me.  They sat on either end of the row. I heard a baby crying for a while and I noticed that the husband/father remained sitting comfortably in his seat, presumably leaving his wife to deal with the baby by herself. I had heard from women in the Arabic Muslim community about some men who are sexist. Immediately a judgmental thought popped into my mind. What is wrong with this man? Why is he so selfish and chauvinistic? Then I noticed the thoughts in my mind and asked myself if I was stereotyping? “I don’t know this man!”. I then checked and found that his baby was actually sleeping soundly on the seats between them and the crying was coming from someone else’s baby. 

A great rationalist commentator on the Torah, Ibn Ezra, states that there are three types of commandments including one that governs what people think in their minds (6). He argues that through our thinking, we can control the impulse to covet another man’s wife. He argues that just as a villager would not covet a princess regardless of how beautiful she is because he knows this is not realistic. Surely then what God has forbidden to one person because it is the possession of another should be even less likely to arouse envy. A great theory, but if this was the case pedophilia would never involve religious people, tragically it does.  

Both approaches reflect part of the truth. It is true that we are commanded to love and think good thoughts and we can some of the time. It is equally true that this is impractical at least some of the time. Self-compassion is in order, accepting that some circumstances will reasonably elicit emotions like anger, or fear and this is ok. Yet we aspire to comply with the commands not to hate but to love instead, by being aware of our thoughts (7) and choosing to think other thoughts, sometimes.

1)    Leviticus 19:17, I acknowledge that this law is specifically when the potential hatred is directed against “your brother, which is disappointing for me because I would love to see a broader directive against all hate
2)    Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel
3)    Talmud, Kidushin 41a
4)    Lekach Tov, cited in Torah Shlaima on Leviticus 1918, p.69
5)    Maimonides, Yad Hachazah, Laws of Teshuva 10:6, Tanya
6)    Ibn Ezra on Exodus 20:2, also cited in Lebovitz, N. New Studies in Vayikra, p. 344
7)    My coleauge Donna Jacobs Sife has taught be that to counter prejudice in ourselves requires vigilance to our thoughts. Thank you Donna for this valuable insight.

Oslo Synagogue Muslim Peace Ring - Gestures and Garments - Tetzaveh

The shame of some Muslims’ hate, it has been disapprovingly claimed, ‘was being covered up this week by inspiring media reports of a circle of Muslims protecting a synagogue in Oslo’ (1). This heart-warming and graceful gesture followed the murder of a Jewish volunteer guard in Copenhagen by a Muslim extremist. An eye witness account by a Rabbi who participated in this event described his moving experience of the circle of peace. It was “initiated by Muslim teenagers to convey the message to terrorists that if they want to harm the Jewish community in Oslo, they would have to go through them first (2)”. However, initial glowing reports were followed by articles and comments that questioned the number of Muslims and the value of the gesture.

The critics are wrong. Three different first person accounts confirm that Muslims turned out in very large numbers for this event (3). The critics also fail to account for the power of ‘gracious spectacles’ to create reality, or what might be termed the spiritual qualities of mere garments.

The backlash against the Oslo ring of Muslims who stood around a Synagogue is ironic. Late last year
I joined Christians and a small group of Jews from the inner-West Chavura in a gesture of solidarity with Muslims on the steps of Lakemba Mosque. One critical Jewish leader asked when Muslims would come to a Synagogue to reciprocate the gesture. Now that it has happened, it is not considered good enough. The fact that one of the organisers, Ali Chishti, had expressed anti-Jewish sentiments some years earlier, in 2008, was trotted out.  However, at the peace ring event, Chishti apologised for his hateful words against Jews demonstrating the potential for haters to change.

These gestures are more than a commitment to coexistence - they also contribute to the construction of a reality of togetherness. This reinforced reality counters the extremist narrative of hate and the broader “us & them” perspective. It is not good enough to be peace loving in our hearts, although that is ultimately what matters. Yet, there is power in the spectacles of peace in the long hard battle for hearts and minds to embrace diversity and reject hate.

External appearances matter. Adam and Eve’s dignity was restored after they ate forbidden fruit, having been provided with clothing by God himself (4). The text speaks of clothing made of hide (Or,- עורin Hebrew), perhaps that of the serpent (5), however, the Midrash renders it as clothing of light (אור Also pronounced Or, but spelled with the letter Alef instead of an Ayin) (6). The word “naked”, carries connotations of shame and is used figuratively to refer to the feeling of being emotionally exposed.

In the Torah reading this week we have specific divine instructions relating to garments of “honour and glory” (7) to be worn by the priests. These garments are to be made in order to sanctify Aaron and to turn him into a priest (8). The garments themselves brought atonement for sins, the hat for arrogance, etc. (9). Our sages go so far as to say that “for all the time that their garments are upon them, their priesthood is upon them and their holiness endures in them, (but if) their garments are not on them, their priesthood is not upon them (either) (10).  Appearances can create reality!

The importance of “clothes” in its various forms is contested. One scholar suggests that “in truth” the clothes of the priests merely point to the “inner garments that the priests of God need to dress their souls with, that is the ideas, emotions and good dispositions which are the garments of the soul” (11). Perhaps the interplay between the external garment or gesture and the inner reality it relates to reinforce each other (12). A gesture is meaningless if there is nothing in the heart for it to express, a fancy tie only helps express the gravitas of a person of some accomplishment; however positive sentiments and integrity are reinforced by an elegant expression. This has been accomplished in Oslo and has been rightly celebrated as one significant step on the long journey to peace. 


Footnotes:

1) http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/02/22/media-hoax-20-muslims-holding-hands-become-1000-strong-ring-of-peace-at-oslo-synagogue/ is one example of the negative commentary, whose assumptions about attendance and interpretation of the event vary greatly with three eye witness accounts I have reach such as the one in footnote 2.
(2) Here is an abbreviated first person account by Rabbi Michael Melichior who participated in this event, shared by him on Facebook 23.02.2015, https://www.facebook.com/rabbi.melchior/posts/1019753274719893 Circle of Peace:  As Shabbat ended yesterday evening, all us attending synagogue in Oslo that day had a very moving experience. A group of eight Muslim teenagers decided to ignore their fears, to show contempt for prejudice, to put aside all the pressures and previous notions they may have held and to take action following the terror attack in Copenhagen.

The young Muslims encircled the synagogue, in which we were praying with a human chain in order to convey the message to terrorists that if they want to harm the Jewish community in Oslo, they would have to go through them first. These young people created a Facebook group entitled, "Circle of Peace" in which they invited Muslims to join the initiative. Contrary to the expectations of all the skeptics and people "in the know", their Facebook call was shared by hundreds of Muslims, and as I left the house and was walking to evening prayers at the synagogue, some 1,400 Muslims, mostly young people, had already collected along the narrow street….

… I explained to those gathered that we want to spread the scent of Shabbat, the day of rest and peace, into the remainder of the week and to also spread the special scent of this historic moment in order to establish a new reality together.

One after another, in the freezing cold, the youngsters from the organizing group stood up and called on their brethren to take back ownership of Islam. That out of faithfulness to Islam, they are saying NO to anti-Semitism, as well as NO to Islamophobia and YES to building a shared society. Such a simple, accurate and true message. Each and every one spoke in the name of Allah the Merciful and Compassionate and it was clear they really meant it.

I had the honor of addressing the participants and of providing the closing remarks...

“Exactly one week earlier, Oslo's sister community in Copenhagen was gathered to celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of the young girl, Hannah Bentov. The murderous perpetrator, who intended to create a bloodbath, managed to murder only the guard at the gate, Dan Uzan. After the funeral, I visited the parents of Dan and told them about the planned initiative of the young Muslims in Norway. With tears streaming down his face, Mordechai, Dan's father stood, embraced me in a tight hug and told me that this was the first time he had managed to find meaning in the brutal death of his son. Perhaps because of young Muslims in Norway, Dan's death would not be in vain. Maybe we'll be able to isolate the evil and we can join hands to build a better world. I promised to pass Mordechai's message to the young Muslims and so I did.

…Their circle is a circle of peace, brotherhood, love and solidarity, formed to protect a house of prayer, a Jewish kindergarten and a Jewish nursing home. Their circle is actually breaking a different circle, which is a cycle of fear and hatred that leads to bloodshed and murder.

I concluded, to the sound of their applause, that as a believer, I share their belief in Allahu Akbar - that G-d, in His Greatness alone, is present in every space throughout the world. And that in particular, He is present in the space between their moving circle and us Jews. For, where there is humanity, Allah wants to be more than anywhere else in the world.

(3) Part of the controversy was fuelled by photos in the media of a small number of Muslims standing holding hands.  This was used as proof that only a small number of Muslims actually attended. The real story is as follows:
a) The Synagogue is part of city block. It was impractical to circle the synagogue which is why a few people stood in front of it to symbolise the ring of peace. https://martingrunerlarsen.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/emailing-breitbart/ 
b) As witness Jude Rose stated “At the behest of the Synagogue's security people, the organisers of the event agreed that they would let about 20 mainly young Muslims inside the Synagogue's security perimeter. Those 20 symbolised the other 1300 attendants who filled the street. Look at the Rabbi's picture, taken from the Synagogue's forecourt..” https://www.facebook.com/rabbi.melchior/posts/1019753274719893
c) See previous footnote
(4) Genesis 3:21,
(5) Pirkey DRabbi Eliezer 20, cited in Torah Shlaima Bereshis Chapter 3, p.286, note 183
(6)  Beresheer Rabba 20, highlighted by Benno Jacobs, cited in Leibovitz, N., New Studies in the weekly Sidra, Shemot, Exodus, p. 529
(7)  Exodus 28:2
(8)  Exodus 28:3, see Rashi, “to sanctify him, to bring him into the priesthood through the garments that he should become a Cohen/Priest”
(9)  Chizkuni, the trousers bring atonement for sexual sins, the tunic with its noisy bells for evil speech or gossip, the plate on the forehead atones for brazenness etc. 
(10)  Midrash Hagadol, cited in Torah Shlaima Exdodus, Tetzave, p.157, note 24

(11)  Malbim Exodus on 28:2, Malbim differentiates between the physical clothing made by the craftsmen and the inner garments that Moses himself is commanded to make for Aaron his brother in this verse
(12)  The Lubavticher Rebbe Likutei Sichos vol. 36, p. 159, comments on the symbolism of the very long belt that the Kohanim would wear. He sees its purpose as the Kohen following the principle of “prepare yourself toward your God, oh Israel” (Amos 4:12), as a finishing touch to the garments. He links this to our own service of God and the need to prepare ourselves more generally through being humble (or more specifically the concept of Bittul which is translated as “nullifying ourselves”) before God. The belt was 32 cubits or arms lengths long, it was tied around and around the Kohen’s body, this process is symbolic of the need to humble ourselves before and give ourselves to God is a an on-going process rather than a once off. Chasidic texts link the belt to the level of the soul known  as Yechida, unity or unified, linked to  becoming one with God.

Jews Muslim and Hate Realistic Responses and Korach

Ibrahim Abdo, Donna Jacobs Sife, Mohamed Taha and
Kastel present Jews Muslim and Hate Realistic Responses at
Yom Limmud, Sydney June 2014

Two young Muslims, Mohamed Taha and Ibrahim Abdo, joined Donna Jacobs Sife and me on a panel at Yom Limmud (Jewish learning festival) last Sunday. Our topic: Jews, Muslims and hate - realistic responses.

Ibrahim and I reflected on the way that hatred is often masked; ostensibly it is about one thing but, in reality, it is driven by other factors. This plays out in the story of Korah’s rebellion and animosity  against Moses. Korah talks about equality  but, according to tradition, he was less motivated by an aspiration for anarchy than by personal ambition,  hurt  and a desire for the position of high priest .

While the causes of hate are murky, the impact is unmistakable. Here is a first person account from a teacher  about some of her Muslim students:
…I live in fear that the students will find out that I am Jewish. I do. I am terrified that the students will find out that I am Jewish. I am very ashamed to say this and I have never said this to anybody [teacher almost in tears as s/he relates this incident]. A few years ago, while stopping students etching swastikas onto a desk, one of the students yelled at me, ‘Why Miss, are you a Jew?’ And I said, ‘No, I am not. That is incorrect behaviour’. This is the only time in my life that I have lied about being a Jew, and I am not an observant Jew; I am not a religious Jew; but I have never considered lying or hiding the fact that I am a Jew. But this time, I know, for my survival, that I did not want my tyres slashed... I did not want – what scared me the most, more than offence on my private property, was public graffiti in the school playground stating that I was a Jew... and I was aware that, in that moment,  it was pure fear that I lied and said I was not a Jew.

Then, there is the hatred directed against Muslims. A very strong Muslim woman I know and respect, has recently stopped using public transport in Sydney after increased harassment of Muslim women on trains. This is absolutely unacceptable. My own Jewish community is not immune. There are the familiar moral panic emails about “the Muslims this and the Muslims that”. There are comments made by some, that generalise about “the Muslims”.

The fact that Ibrahim, Mohamed, Donna Jacobs Sife and I presented to a packed room of mostly Jewish people, with Muslims attending as well, speaks volumes. It reflects a thirst for coexistence on the part of the audience and the fact that our aspirations for coexistence are very realistic, as demonstrated by the goodwill of the panellists towards each other. We offered our audience a realistic response - members of different communities can come together with a common purpose, such as, opposing hatred.

Perhaps, what we need is our own version of a serious smoking ceremony. I recently learned from our Aboriginal brothers and sisters how smoke is used to cleanse unwanted energy. I later discovered that, in Judaism, the Hebrew word for smoke,עשן , consists of the first three letters of words that cover the three dimensions of reality - עולם  world or space, שנה year or time, and נפש  soul or spirit. The smoke rising from the incense ritual, elevates and heals all three aspects . Perhaps, this is why, in the aftermath of the Korah controversy, Aaron is instructed to go out among the people carrying incense . At first, he merely restrains the carnage resulting from all the fighting, but then the spiritual force of destruction itself acquiesces and the destruction stops . 

Conclusion: Hate is a powerful, consuming force. I feel it in my stomach when I see it or experience it. Thankfully, I don’t experience it often. More often, I experience the absolute delight of having made a friend, who might have been a potential enemy. This joy and goodwill is reciprocated by my many Muslim friends and by bridge- builders of many backgrounds around the world. Can it continue to be replicated? Yes!




Notes

1. The Torah tells us that Dathan and Aviram reject Moses' invitation to talk. “The eyes of those people will be put out we will still not go up” (16:14); they chose to have their eyes gouged out rather than the ascent Moses might promise them. In this, they revealed the intensity of their hatred towards the righteous Moses and what he represented: this angered Moses greatly (Ohr Hachayim)
2.  Numbers 16:3
3.  Midrash Tanchuma, the appointment of Elitzafan Ben Uziel, the son of Korah’s father’s younger brother, in Numbers 3:30 offends Korah.
4.  See Numbers 16:10, many commentaries
5.  Rutland, S. (2010) Creating effective Holocaust education programmes for government schools with large Muslim populations in Sydney, Prospects (2010) 40:75–91, Springer Press. 
6. Ohr Hatora, Shemot, Vol 3, pp. 103, 106, cited in The Siddur Illuminated by Chassidus, Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch 2013.
7.  Numbers 17:11
8.  There were two stages in Aaron’s stopping the carnage of the plague that G-d had initiated in the aftermath of Korah’s rebellion. First we are told that וַתֵּעָצַר הַמַּגֵּפָה  “the plague ceased”, when Aaron stands between the dead and the living holding the incense (Numbers 17:13). Two verses later we are told again that the plague ceased וְהַמַּגֵּפָה נֶעֱצָרָה.  The commentary Ohr Hachayim explains that the word “plague” refers to the angel of death administering the plague. The first time the text tells us the plague ceases it means that the angel was merely checked or restrained by Aaron and the power of the incense, but from the angels point of view he was still keen on continuing the plague as this was his mission from God. The second time is different.  Despite the fact that Aaron returned to Moses and that he put away the incense, the plague itself had agreed to cease.