Nearly two weeks ago on a Wednesday morning, I did an uncharacteristic thing. During the busiest time of the year for me, I jumped in a cab, flew the shuttle to Washington, D.C. and thanks to the marvels of modern travel was back home seven hours later. I had been invited as part of a select group of rabbis to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan, which I suspected sounded more impressive that it might actually be. I debated until the last minute about whether to go. What could the king possibly say to a group of rabbis that would be significant? In the end, I decided to go because I knew the organizer, Rabbi Marc Gopin, and he assured me that this invitation was extended to a select group—not every rabbi in America.
We gathered in a ballroom in a Washington hotel. We stood as the king entered. The king is a short handsome man who speaks English fluently. He began his speech with a reference to the Prophet Muhammad. Whenever he mentioned Muhammad’s name he would add Peace be Upon Him, which reminded me of the tradition of referring to God as ha-kadosh barukh hu: The Holy One Blessed be He. It also made me wonder whether the king is a religious person or just a politician like so many in America who profess religiosity. And then he mentioned that the Hashemites, his family are direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. I imagined such a yichus would have real meaning especially to a king. He told us about his efforts to foster an Islam that would be a partner in the development of human civilization. He told us about the Amman Message that states p. 7; 9. At a meeting he organized this past July of leading religious scholars from 45 countries, they declared that only recognized religious scholars can issue authoritative fatwas—not people like Bin Laden—nor can one Muslim call another an apostate. He ended by calling upon all the children of Abraham, Jews and Muslims to move past just a tolerance for each other to a real acceptance of each other.
Last Thurs night, again when I should have been preparing readings and sermons, I went instead to hear a talk by Doug Suissman at the JCC. Last May, there had been an article in the NY Times about his work for the Rand Corporation to create the infrastructure for a Palestinian state, should there ever be peace. After I read the article, I Googled his name and called him in Santa Monica to see about his speaking at SAJ. He told me he had just agreed to speak at the JCC in Manhattan and so wouldn’t speak elsewhere in Manhattan around that time. I was disappointed. The only good thing about this was that Joy had nothing to do with inviting him to speak at the JCC.
Some of you may remember the article. On the front page of the arts and leisure section, the piece was entitled The Day after Peace: Designing Palestine. Suissman, an architect was hired by the Rand Corp. to be part of their study of what a Palestinian state could look like. This study did not focus on the question of where the border would be, or the status of Jerusalem or any of the usual issues. It began with the assumption that the eventual solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was two states and that the Palestinian state would be made up of Gaza and some portion of the West bank. What could be conceived then that might help this new Palestinian state become economically successful rather than a failed state and thus a breeding ground for terrorism. There were many parts to this Rand study. Suissman worked on only one related to population dispersion, transportation and ensuing economics issues. The basic idea he developed is called arc—ARC for a high speed train that will begin in Gaza cross thru Israel and then up through the west bank passing near most of the major Palestinian cities following the current arc of settlement that exists because of the contour of the topography of the west bank.
I find it fascinating to hear an expert talk about a field that I know next to nothing about. The plan, which I will not summarize for you tonight, seems brilliant in its vision and its detailed focus. If you are interested you can download the lengthy studies by going to the Rand Corporation website and looking for their Middle East study. Suissman would be the first to admit that even if the first hurdle—a lasting peace—is accomplished, the plan is ambitious and challenging. Yet what was striking was how committed he is to this enterprise. Suissman, who grew up in a Zionist home in the northeast had brought his family to his lecture including his 3 and 6 year old children. He began his talk describing the many long trips that had taken him away from his children. He felt badly about that, as he said each day away from his kids was a day never to be recovered. But when he looks at his kids, he thinks of the Palestinian kids that he saw of that age, and the Israeli kids of that age and felt he needed to do this work so that perhaps those kids could grow up in a world without fear, a world where riding buses would be a normal not dangerous activity.
What was so striking about both King Abdullah and Doug Suissman was not their clear intelligence or even their commitment to work on this seemingly intractable problem. It was rather their ability, their willingness, perhaps their determination to hope despite all the evidence to the contrary. For the king there was also an element of courage, for while the statement that we need to accept one another seems fairly mild, in his world, and in his family people have been killed for saying such things. (As an aside, the Arab world is not alone in its need to validate acceptance and pluralism—parts of the Jewish world resort to intolerance if not violence against other Jews). But beyond his courage, it was his hope, made manifest in a ballroom in our nation’s capital, speaking to people who have every reason to distrust every word he utters—it was that hope in his words and in his eyes that I found moving. It was that hope, in Doug Suissman’s words and in his eyes as he talked about population density, train stations, and location of housing—not the most engaging of subjects under normal circumstances—it was that hope that I found moving. And in different ways, both of them said the same thing—the opposite of hope is unacceptable. Let us hope that the coinciding of Rosh ha-Shanah and the beginning of the month of Ramadan be a sign of hope for the future of the Middle East.
I want us to take that message of hope seriously these High Holy Days. Not only or even especially about the Middle East, but more simply and directly about our own lives. The rabbinic tradition is eternally optimistic about the possibility of change. Each year, we are told that we can really change. We are not told that after ten, 20, 30 and more years that the possibility of change is gone. The tradition doesn’t say: It is just the way it is—I’m just the way I am—whether nature or nurture—I, Michael, will be the same Michael I was last year and the year before and the year before and so on. Instead, we are told this is a new year, we read of a woman of 90 who bears a child, of wells that appear in deserts, of a knife halted in mid-descent, of the impossible made possible.
In this New Year, the real question is not who shall live and who shall die, despite the prominence of that verse in our liturgy. No one knows the answer to that question. The real question is who among us believes that something can change despite all evidence to the contrary? Who among us will strive to climb over that barrier no matter how many times they have failed in the past? Who among us will stop being paralyzed by the no exit sign ahead of them and instead find a different path to take? King Abdullah and Doug Suissman have made that choice for themselves and for those whom they serve. Our challenge, yours and mine, is to do the same.
As the psalm we say during this period concludes:
Kaveh el adonai—have hope in God, have hope because God represents hopefulness in the world,
hazak veyametz libekha—be strong and fortify your heart for the hard road ahead,
Ve-kaveh el adoani and the verse comes back to hope because that is what we have; sometimes it is all we have, but it is no small thing.
Copyright © 2005, The Society for the Advancement of Judaism