Earlier this summer I wrote about sitting in my step-daughter’s home, in Los Angeles, praying for peace. The similarities between Los Angeles and Jerusalem seemed palpable. Yet LA seemed calm and Jerusalem seemed on the verge of war. It was.
I remember sitting on other porches. In Jerusalem. On a kibbutz. The porch at Jolli Lodge. In this very house waiting for news that we would live here. Always there has been the hope of peace.
The song “Bashanah Haba’ah” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKrbnmYY1Rs captures the same sentiment that Doria wrote about on her porch in Revere, Massachusetts:
Next year, we’ll sit on the porch
And count the migrating birds.
Children on vacation will play tag
Between the house and the fields.
You’ll see, you’ll see
How good it will be
Next year.
Red grapes will ripen by evening
And will be served chilled at the table.
Eazy breezes will carry to the crossroads
Old newspapers and a cloud.
You’ll see, you’ll see
How good it will be
Next year we’ll spread our hands
To the streaming white light.
A white heron will spread its wings in the light
And the sun will shine
from within them.
You’ll see, you’ll see
How good it will be
Next year.
Bashana haba’a
Neishev al hamirpeset
Ve’nispor tziporim nodedot,
Yeladim bechufsha
Yesachak’u tofeset
Bein habayit l’ve’in hasadot
Od tireh, od tireh
Kama tov yihiyeh
Bashana, bashana haba’a
Anavim adumim
Yavshilu ad ha’erev
Ve’yugshu tzone’nim lashulchan,
Ve’ruchot redumim
Yis’u al em haderech
Itonim yeshanim v’anan.
Od tir eh, od tir eh,
Bashana haba’a
Nifros kapot yadayim
Mul ha’or hanigar halavan,
Anafa levana
Tifros ka’or k’nafayim
V’hashemesh tizrach b’tochan.
Od tir eh, od tir eh,
Lyrics by Ehud Manor, music by Nurit Hirsch, translation in the “Harvard Hillel Sabbath Songbook” (Ben-Zion Gold, ed., Pub by David Godine, 1992, ISBN 0879239409)
So sitting on a porch, watching the children playing, sipping a cup of coffee (really at 7PM? Not me!), maybe peace is achievable. It is like the hope expressed in Isaiah, “Everyone ‘neath their vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid. And into plowshares beat their swords. Nations shall learn war no more.” This vision is popularized in an Israeli folk song, Lo Yisa Goy, adapted by Peter Paul and Mary, and emblazoned on the wall at the United Nations.
Yehudi Amichai, the Israeli poet, took it one step further. In his, “Appendix to the Vision of Peace” said, “Don’t stop after beating the swords into plowshares, don’t stop! Go on beating and make musical instruments out of them. Whoever wants to make war again will have to turn them into plowshares first.”
That’s the vision of peace I want to keep. That I want to promote.
And yet, I am puzzled. Earlier this summer I was asked why the prophet Joel seems to say the opposite. “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say: ‘I am strong.’ (Joel 3:10)
After the senseless and brutal killing of another American journalist, there has been some sabre rattling. Maybe Joel is trying to teach us that in some circumstances it is important to be strong. It is OK to defend ourselves. Not only is it OK, it is necessary.
Deuteronomy carefully spells out the correct way, the just way to conduct a war. For instance if you built a house but haven’t dedicated it, if you planted but haven’t harvested, if you married but hadn’t consummated it yet, you don’t have to go to war. Even if you are “fearful” and “fainthearted,” you didn’t have to go. If you offer a city peace and it accepts, the people become your bounty. But if you offer peace and it makes war—then you may besiege the city. And for me, one of the most important teachings in all of Torah—if you must besiege the city (seems to be a last resort option), then you must not cut down its fruit trees.
From this we derive the principle of bal taschit, do not destroy. From this we derive Judaism’s fundamental commitment to the environment, to G-d’s creation, to all living things.
Being strong is important. We are told over and over again “chazak v’emetz, be strong and of good courage.” For example, Joshua 1: 6. How we are strong is equally important. Our tradition gives us both.
As for me, I want to sit on my porch, sipping my coffee or maybe a glass of wine, listening to the children at play, someone singing while strumming a guitar, and let no one make me afraid. That is my vision of peace.