Words are windows or words are walls.
Last week, on a large Zoom call, a Palestinian friend from Nablus in the West Bank, the town called Shechem in this week's section of Torah, said she felt upset and angry when I called the situation between Israel and Palestine a "war." It is a genocide, she said. I listened deeply, with curiosity, to understand her experience and what she wanted me to understand. I wanted to hear her words in a way that opened windows instead of repeating the cycle of ancient slaughters. I want to hear and use words in ways that open doors to changing the karma of thousands of years of human history.
I checked with her to see if I understood what this meant to her. I asked, is it that when I call what is happening now in Gaza and the West Bank a "war", she doesn't trust that I am really seeing, taking in and caring about the ongoing magnitude and uneven level of destruction and death in Gaza and the West Bank?
Yes, she said.
Is there more you want to add?
Yes, we are losing tens of thousands of children, homes, limbs. It continues right now, as we speak. The situation is not equal.
So for you, "war," implies there is somehow a balance in the suffering and impact ?
Yes, This is one-sided, it is a genocide.
A few days later, an Israeli relative told me that when he heard me refer to what was happening to the Palestinians as a genocide, in a family conversation, he didn't want to speak to me, it didn't feel safe. I asked, is it that you don't trust that I feel empathy and care for Israelis and Jews. That when I use the word "genocide" to describe wehat ishappening in Gaza, I am carrying blame and erasing the horror of what happened to more than a thousand Jews and others in Israel on October 7?
Yes.
Our conversation continued for a while. I realized that if I stayed in the mindset of "agree or disagree," with both people, both very dear to me, I would feel hopeless and walls would go up.
I asked, maybe the question for us is, what do we have to agree on to stop being enemies? How much of each other's perspectives and narratives, do we need to adopt for ourselves, so we feel safe with each other?
How much do we have to agree on to create trust and even partnership between us?
This week's section of Torah, Vayishlach, tells the story of Jacob wrestling through the night with his shadow, or our shadow, and limping away. It details the steps both brothers Jacob and Esau take toward reconciliation with each other, or at least creating peace and space between them. Torah tells the story of Dina's brothers slaughtering the people of Shechem/Nablus. And at the end, there is a great reconciliation between Jacob and his estranged twin brother Esau, long thought of as the shadow side.
How do they reconcile? Each goes through their own journey to take full responsibility for their part in the conflict. Even though they inherited the conflict, it started in their mother's womb, and before that.They stop measuring who is more right or more injured or more wrong. Torah sees this as an evolutionary step for humanity.
But it took a lot of time. It took years of safety and space and resources to create separate stable family and tribal lives. We are so far from that in the world today.
What do we do in the meantime? How do we create a world today that gives people enough safety and resources to wrestle with our own shadows? A world where everyone has enough connection and space to allow others to do the same.
What does it mean to wrestle with our shadow? Spiritually it can mean full engagement with whatever binds and limits our consciousness and our compassion and understanding.
Psychologically and historically, it can mean wrestling with the narratives and karma we were born and raised into. Working through whatever traumatization is embodied in us.
Politically, it means recognizing and transforming the cultural and societal structures that exist to reinforce inequality, separation, suspicion and violence. It means creating structures that support the full flowering of humanity and all life.
Collective mourning may be the key. The Torah section ends with the two brothers coming together to mourn the natural death of their father in old age. When we mourn each others' losses together, what divides us can heal.
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I'm including two additional pieces I wrote on Vayishlach, one from 2020, in the midst of quarantining at home, https://torahattheintersection.com/vayishlach-healing-of-shechem/, and one from 2021, https://torahattheintersection.com/vayishlach-is-it-a-kiss-or-a-bite/
Both address the role of narrative in our lives and struggles.
May these words contribute to peace and the thriving of all peoples.
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Join me, Rabbi Ben Newman and Donna Nisha Cohen for a retreat weekend December 8-10:
Thank you. This is very helpful. I wish we could all see things in this way with compassion and respect for all people. I wish we were all ready to mourn our losses together at this time.
I recently read a long obituary of someone I didn’t know in “The Commons” that has stayed with me. It said the man had no enemies, as he always found something in common with the other person. I like this idea of coming together with something in common.
For me, of course, dogs are often that bridge for me, but I want to keep creating a connection with others, no matter what we have in common. Honey Loring