Israel Matzav

Haaretz gets religion

You can always count on Haaretz to try to misinterpret Torah to be used as a club against the Jewish people. Here's the latest example from one Alex Sinclair.

There is a famous Rashi on Genesis 2:18, in which God decides to create a partner for Adam. The Biblical narrator has God say "It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper against him." The Hebrew here, "ezer k'negdo," is tricky, and has always perplexed translators. Some try "corresponding to him," some try "beside him," some try "fitting." None of these captures the oddness of the Hebrew.

Rashi comments as follows: "If he is worthy: a helper; if he is not worthy: against him, to fight with him." Generations of rabbis have used this beautiful comment to talk about the complexity of the relationship between spouses, and to suggest that a true marriage is based on the ability and willingness to give honest and critical feedback to one's spouse if they lose their way. A spouse is not a yes-man (or ?woman); a spouse is someone who disagrees with you when you are wrong.

The current crisis - and it is a crisis, make no mistake about it - in the relationship between American Jewry and Israel is because we have forgotten this Rashi.

We need to remember this Rashi because it suggests that American Jews should offer angry, vocal, confrontational critique when they feel that Israel is practicing particular policies that they find unworthy. Note the word that Rashi uses: "to fight." Not just to critique, not just to gently remind, not just to seek to influence, but to shout, to confront, to demand to be heard.

If we want American Jews and Israel to be in a truly deep relationship, then we need to enable American Jews to be the ezer k'negdo, the helping spouse who fights. After all, they do enough helping. We can't ask American Jews to support us, visit us, give us their money, and be inspired by us, without allowing them - demanding of them - to tell us what they think. It is taxation without representation. It is an abuse of the relationship between us. It is blasphemy to the very notion of a Jewish state.

Rashi, of course, suggests nothing of the sort. "If he is unworthy, she is against him," is a curse; it's not the way marriage is intended to be. The Gemara is quite clear about that, by the way. The Gemara says that on the morning after a wedding, the husband would be asked, "matza o motzei," which literally means "did he find or is he finding," but which is actually a reference to two different types of marriages. One, which is written in Ben Sira (and which my mother-in-law gave me on a plaque :-) is "matza isha, matza tov" (a man who found a wife found good). The other is a reference to a verse in Ecclesiastes (Koheleth), "u'motzei ani eth ha'ish mar mi'maveth" (and I find the woman more bitter than death). It's not about constructive criticism.

Spouses live together and share daily lives and concerns. Someone halfway around the world with little appreciation for our day-to-day life is not a spouse. A friend, maybe, but not a spouse.

For one to give constructive criticism, one must first be in a loving relationship. Imagine if a stranger came up to you in the street and criticized the way you were dressed, the way you disciplined your child, the way you kept your hair or the pace at which you walked. Would you listen to them? Would you ignore them? Would you punch them in the face? Would you hope never to see them again? Now imagine that your loving spouse gently chided you about one of those things, would your reaction be different?

The problem with Israel's relationship with the diaspora today is not that American Jewry doesn't criticize us enough - it's that the loving relationship with much of American Jewry is missing.

It's missing because much of American Jewry has no appreciation for Israel's day-to-day existential problems, because much of American Jewry has never even visited Israel, because much of American Jewry has no love for Israel or Israelis (partly because much of American Jewry is intermarried and either not Jewish or Jewish in name only), and because much of American Jewry has abandoned Judaism and replaced it with a religion called Liberalism. As the prophet Isaiah wrote in God's name (1:12) regarding the idol-worshipers of his time, who considered themselves righteous when they visited the Temple, "Who asked you to come see Me, to trample in My courtyards." Until the proper relationship is there - a relationship that puts the continued existence and well-being of the Jewish people ahead of all else - no criticism is appropriate or should be taken seriously.

American Jews who have a loving relationship with Israel have the right and the duty to criticize it. The kind of people Alex Sinclair wants to hear from - like many of the people at the J Street Conference last week - have no loving relationship with Israel and no right to criticize.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:48 AM