Good morning, Boker Tov, Gutten Tag - from Berlin, where I’m on the road with the Sabbath Queen, and where I woke up today to the terrifying but not totally surprising news of an escalation -- an Israeli attack on Iran’s nucelear operations and leadership - and now the next steps of waiting for retaliation in what seems to be an an endless war with no peace in sight and so much suffering. And on and on.
How old is this war? As old as this book we are reading here, and way older than this bible itself. A war that goes back to our pre political history, pre tribal, pre human. It seems like these kind of primal fights go back to some animal instincts of battles for territory and power, basic food chain stuff, wild time when no lion lies down with lambs and the law of the jungle prevails.
I’m thinking of all this animalistic primal stuff as I’m reading both this morning’s headlines and the pages from the chapters of Chronicles that we are in the middle of on our below the bible belt journey. As the final chord of the bible, the Book of Chronicles chronicles the ancient wars that put David on the throne and how he built the kingdom of Judah and Israel. It’s a book that valorized the kind of values we can both admire - and be critical of. That’s how love works.
This latest military operation echoes the bible and its attitudes. It is named Am K’Lavie - a People Strong as Lions - words taken from the biblical book of Numbers, from the curse turned blessing or vice versa, uttered by Balaam, a powerful prophet and magician hired by a local king to curse the people Israel, words that end up being blessings instead - these words were included in the prophet’s poetry of praise for a nation strong enough to survive -- these people rise as lions, drinking the blood of their victims.
This verse from the bible was written by Israel’s prime minister on a small note that he inserted into the western wall two days ago, not before making sure it’s photographed and shared on social media, for God to read and for the people to witness. This war is Biblical.
Lions also show up in the chapters Chronicles we are now reading. The lion is the totem animal of the tribe of Judah, and that’s how it’s become associated with Judean pride. In chapter 11 that we read yesterday, they describes one of David’s top warriors, and among his famous fetes was that snowy day in which he descended to a pit and killed a lion with his bare hands, as snow was falling. They remembered that part.
And in the next chapter we’ll read next week - the warriors of the north are described with awe - swift as deer, with their faces fierce like lions.
This book is all about the House of David and the particular path chosen for our people - it includes courage and vision, but also cruelty and callousness for other ways of life and other people’s lives unlike our own. Both seeds of Jewish pride and prejudice are built in here. Both our pride and our shame.
It’s on us to carefully read through these chapters so that we can also talk back to these traditions, to do as our ancestors have always done - to interpret what we need, to pick up the story where its done and to take the plot off the page, start a new chapter, towards another, better, kinder, and more hopeful path. We don’t have to recycle the traumas and tropes of the past.
We don’t read just to remember what happened. we read so that we can learn what worked, what didn’t, and what we must change.
There’s one more book on my mind this morning.
When my late father, Naphtali Lau-Lavie, of blessed memory, wrote his memoir he gave it the title Am K’Lavie - People as a Lion - using this very verse. It’s not just a nod to the family name - it’s his vision of rising from the rubble of the past. His story is that of a holocaust survivor, who lived against the odds and became one of the builders of Israel, and one of the architects of its peace treaty with Egypt. He also describes his early career as a journalist, covering the nuclear program that German scientists helped create for Israel, in secrecy. And also for Iran.
Full circle today.
So here I am in Berlin, capital of the free world, where bears are the local totem animal and proud lions grace gates of public buildings, watching with horror as mighty beast rip each other to shreds far away, so close, ancient pages come to life and roar with rage, again and again.
And yet there were these other prophets who refused to let the animal kingdom of cruelty dictate our path and imagined the best way our animals can teach us live in peace, lions and lambs together, tigers and deer, not a food chain but an ecosystem of empathy and co-existence.
My father’s trauma and the much older fears that he inherited and passed on to us, much like the ones experienced by other elders and families of all other tribes and nations - are older than the stories we tell and the books we deem sacred.
The healing recipe is as just old, and here to remind us not to give up on better days and better ways to be here for and with each other.
Last night in Berlin, my two friends Noa together with Mira Awad sang as they do, leading us in prayer and protest - Palestinian and Israeli, two women, great artists, peacemakers, who keep performing together to remind us - from the rubble, we will rise again. There must be another way. You can watch it here:
May it be so. Wishing us all a shabbat of peace within and beyond, to all people, all creatures, all beings, everywhere, less fear, more love, the pride of lions and the care of lionesses who raise their cub to be the kings and queens of kinder lands.
From Berlin - may peace prevail.
Shabbat Shalom.
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