I.
The Uganda Plan is one of the most derided episodes in the history of Zionism. Stymied in his initial attempts to receive international backing for a Jewish national home in Palestine, Theodor Herzl pushed instead for a Jewish National Home in British East Africa – in the area that is today Uganda. The Uganda plan received a lot of support in the Zionist movement. In addition to Herzl, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who was already living in Jerusalem, supported the Uganda plan, and the Mizrahi, the Religious faction of the Zionist movement supported the Uganda plan – they were desperate to save the Jews of Europe. But the masses of East European Jewry, the backbone of the Zionist movement were vociferously opposed. How could Jews relocate from their home countries and move anywhere else other than Eretz Yisrael?
And yet. During the years that the Zionist Congresses debated Uganda – how many Jews made their way to Eretz Yisrael? One or two thousand? Maybe five thousand? In those same years, how many Jews left their homes in Eastern Europe and moved to the United States? Not two thousand. Not five thousand. Not ten thousands. but tens, even hundreds of thousands of Jews came here and built shuls, and Yiddish theaters, and Jewish schools and other institutions of Jewish life.
America is Uganda. We are living in the great alternative solution to the “Jewish question in Europe” and Jewish life here endures nearly five generations after the Uganda proposal was shelved by the Zionist Congress. Jewish life here is good. We are free and equal citizens who participate in governing our country. We are respected by our fellow citizens and admired by Americans of all faiths. We are protected here and are safe. In Lakeview Jewish life couldn’t be better! We have a shul, a mikvah, an eruv that’s usually up, and an amazing kosher restaurant around the corner.
Jewish life here is very comfortable. It’s very pleasant. But we are missing an intensity and immediacy that comes from knowing that the burden of Jewish survival rests on one’s own shoulders. We don’t perceive ourselves to be burdened with ensuring Jewish survival . We are not faced with hard decisions. We aren’t sullied by the consequences of hard decisions. We do not need to decide whether or not to accept a cease-fire that will save lives in the short term but create risks in the long-term. I have never been fired upon and then had to decide where and how to direct return-fire to protect myself yet possibly risk harming civilians. In the New York Times this morning, Israel’s ambassador to Washington is quoted as saying, “the price of sovereignty is imperfection.”
Last week, we read about the special arrangement that Moshe made with Reuven and Gad. In return for receiving a special portion of land on the Eastern bank of the Jordan, they agreed to fight in the front ranks in the battles of conquest in Eretz Yisrael. It seems like a happy ending. Except, that we discovered this week that when Moshe allocated cities of refuge, he allotted three in the territory on the Eastern bank of the Jordan and another three in all of the remainder of Eretz Yisrael. Why did this tiny minority end up with a disproportionate number of cities of refuge? Rashi explains, “in Gilead, in the East Bank, there were a lot of murders.” Reuven and Gad courageously fought for Eretz Yisrael ahead of their brothers. They fulfilled their obligation and they kept their end of the bargain struck with Moshe. And then they went home, to cities plagued by the violence they had learned at war. There is no escape, it appears, from the consequences of war. Even waging war at the command of Moshe, does not offer full protection from the corruption of war. The price of sovereignty is imperfection.
II.
The treatment of the accidental killer – the rotze’ah b’shogeg is a focus of this week’s parsha One who kills another accidentally is not punished but must flee to a city of refugee, to the ir miklat, and so long as he stays in the city of refuge, he will be safe. But, should he leave the city of refuge he is at risk of being killed by the go’el ha-dam, the blood avenger, a relative of the victim who is given permission to kill the accidental murderer.
Why is the accidental killer forced into exile? He didn’t intend to harm anyone? Because, according to Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin in his commentary to the Torah, bloodshed makes the land impure – all bloodshed makes the land impure.
וְלא תְטַמֵא אֶת הָאָרץ אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם יֹשְׁבִים בָה אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי שֹכֵן בְתוכָה וגו׳
“And you shall not make the land impure that you live upon; the land where I reside…”
That verse, according to the Netziv, is a reference to the accidental killer – accidental killing also makes the land impure. The exile of the accidental killer is an act of atonement for the blood that he shed and in this way the land itself is purified.
But if the Torah provides for a city of refuge for the accidental killer, why does the Torah accommodate the go’el ha-dam – the blood avenger? According to some opinions, the blood avenger has a legitimate grievance against the accidental killer of his relative. We arrange for the killer to have a place to find refuge, but the blood avenger is not entirely wrong in seeking out his death. But others argue, and I think they are correct, that the institution of the blood avenger is itself a concession to human nature. From the perspective of abstract justice, the accidental killer should be left alone. He did not intend to harm anyone. But the go’el ha’dam has a gaping hole in his life that was made by the accidental killer. The go’el ha-dam cares more about his family and his pain than he does about abstract justice. The Torah does not endorse, but forgives, and accommodates that element of human nature. We are human beings, and are meant to cultivate love for all humanity, but we are also members of a particular family, and we begin by loving them.
III.
This past week, as I’ve heard about Israeli casualties in the fighting in Gaza, I’ve held my breath until I can find the names of the dead soldiers. Each time, I breath a sigh of relief that I don’t recognize the names of anyone I know. I’m aware that it is ethically problematic to respond in that way. Each fallen solider is someone’s son, brother, father, or husband. Do my own friends serving in the army have blood that is redder than anyone else? Of course not. But it is still natural to be more concerned about friends and family. Indeed, my own thinking and concerns are a microcosm of the broader question of belonging to a family, a tribe, a nation, and the ethical responsibilities that creates, even as we balance them with universal concern for human life and human welfare.
This is the critique against Rawlsian liberalism that Michael Sandel and the other communitarian philosophers articulated decades ago. John Rawls believed that a just society was one that would be designed by people who did not know their race, religion, sex, or abilities. Sandel pointed out that people like that never existed. We come into the world already embedded in a thick web of connections and ties to other people.
A Rawlsian liberal could never pardon the go’el ha-dam. How can we allow such an affront against justice. How can this prejudicial behavior be tolerated? But we understand that our love for our family can motivate us to do things out of solidarity that we could not explain by appeals to abstract justice.
There is a role for an objective look at the conflict and for universal concern for the suffering of human beings on both sides of the border. There is a need to remind ourselves that the most important fundamental, and radical assertion of the Torah is that every human being is created in God’s image.
But there are ethical obligations of family, of tribe, and of nation. And so while my prayers today are for peace and for an end to fear and suffering and killing for all – my existential fear is focused on our brothers and sisters in Israel, and on the brave soldiers of the IDF who are risking their lives and risking their souls on behalf of the Jewish People and the very ability of the State of Israel to endure.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 