During the Days of Awe, between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement when a Jew's fate is sealed in the book of life by G-d for the coming year, most Jews with any residual sense of Jewish consciousness go through some form of self assessment and approach towards personal improvement (this is loosely similar to the secular "New Year's resolution" thought process, but perhaps deeper). During this period we recite in our prayers that (I paraphrase) "through charity, repentance and prayer may we avert the evil decree for the year to come". Hence, part of the ritual of many Jews during this period is to generally try to "catch up" religiously for what they didn't do or did wrong during the year (resulting, for example, the increased synagogue attendance throughout the world on the Sabbath between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur).
Fortunately for the more observant (or more neurotic) of the tribe, the Jewish religion provides several specific tasks to help Jews repent during this period, and thereby expunge many of their sins from the prior year and help secure a good spot in the book of life for the
coming one. As aforementioned, these include the specific tasks of giving to charity and prayer, which help us out of the sins that we committed against G-d and his rules. But the act of repentance is most interesting, and particularly the aspect of repentance that requires
that we ask the forgiveness of anyone we have wronged during the prior year (this applies to resolving your second set of sins, those between you and your fellow man). As one of those "catch-up" Jews who attended synagogue yesterday, I was privileged to participate in a lesson on this subject conducted by our rabbi. I will not try to recount the entire lesson, which was excellent, but will briefly summarize a couple of basic points, and since this is, after all, a blog on world affairs, try to tie it to the hope for more productive global human behavior in the
coming year. The concept of asking for forgiveness is not as easy as it would first appear:
--The act of seeking forgiveness in this context serves a very human need to "let it out" and discuss an issue of conflict. As we all know (I think), a little conflict can turn into a big conflict, and source of immense hatred and destruction, if we keep the perceived injustice bottled up inside of us, or do not "talk it out" with the other party -- this doesn't mean that such talk will resolve the issue, but the act of direct communication serves a pressure release purpose all into and of itself. As my rabbi -- and my wife -- says, the one who gets the ulcer and develops the longer lasting, deeper and potentially explosive feelings on an issue is not the one who "lets it out", but the one who keeps it bottled up inside of him.
--It must be a sincere desire and request for forgiveness in recognition of our wronging that other person at some point in time, not necessarily in the year in which the forgiveness is sought (i.e., it is never to late to ask for forgiveness).
--In seeking repentance for the sin in question, you must seek forgiveness at least three times of the person who was hurt -- if they reject your request the first time, you must seek it again. After the third time of being denied, you are generally "off the hook" and the onus is on the other person.
--Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting -- for it to be an acceptable act of forgiveness, the person who is granting forgiveness doesn't also have to forget. However, just as the person seeking forgiveness must be serious and contrite in his request for it, the forgiver must also mean
to forgive, though it is a permissible forgiveness for him to not necessarily be prepared to "forget" the wrongdoing. However, the forgiver must not continue to hold spite in his heart for the wrongdoing and wrongdoer over the event. Hence, it is not a genuine forgiveness to forgive by saying, "I 'forgive you' because I will show that I am bigger than you are". That is not forgiveness, but merely an alternate form of revenge.
OK, how do I tie this to international affairs as we approach Yom Kippur?
--Firstly, as I said in my preceding blog, "Column One: A Prayer for 5767 for the Jewish People, and All People", we must know what we stand for and what we believe in, and not let our adversaries shape who we are. If you have confidence in your core beliefs, you can communicate them better, which avoids misunderstandings in negotiation and sets the broad lines for doable compromise and conflict resolution. If you don't know what your core beliefs are, or can be defined by your adversaries in reflexive negatives, you shouldn't be talking in the first place. If you are Israel, those beliefs include a Jewish state of Israel within secure borders, with full recognition and peaceful ties with the Arab world, and for the Western community, an Iran that does not have the ability or intent to create nuclear weapons to threaten its neighbors or the world.
--The act of talking out one's reasons for grievance in a sincere fashion directly to the other person -- not through newspapers or other intermediaries designed to score points, but directly -- is a critical step to resolving conflict, or at least letting some pressure out in
words, which would otherwise be expressed with guns. A former partner of mine is Madelaine Albright's son-in-law. He implied to me that her view towards trying to keep Israel and the Palestinians talking in the Mideast conflict was not that it would be solved tomorrow -- it would take a generation or more of re-education and healing to do that. Instead, she thought that the more you got people to talk and make their views and historic grievances clear in international relations, the greater the chance that something productive could come out of it, or at least that you'd keep a cap on violence. Perhaps her error in that regard was that the communication, instead of being conducted broadly between peoples and with the patience that is the way of doing things in the Mideast, was being conducted on a Western timetable ("lets get to a solution yesterday") primarily through an aging, spineless and Machiavellian revolutionary (Arafat) who cared more about his survival than the good of is people. Another lesson learned from that one was the need to get a broader constituency in the Arab world behind Arafat for compromising with Israel, because he was too scared to negotiate the
presence of a non-Islamic state in the Middle East on is own (ironically enough, the Saudis, threatened today by Islamic extremism, now are accepting of a final settlement with Israel). Since the problems that are difficult to solve usually involve a two way street of grievance and
are not just one-sided, both parties must be talking these things out with the other, not over the other's head. Hence, an international peace conference run by Europeans to force Israel and the Palestinians to "make peace" will never have a positive impact. It is up to the Palestinian people and leadership, and the Israeli people and leadership to speak to each other directly and make peace directly, against a greater backdrop of support from their respective camps (i.e., the Arab world and the Western world). Each must air its grievances to the other and try to educate the other as to its positions. Likewise, for the US-Iranian situation that we now face. President Bush made his first attempt at the UN last week to go straight to the Iranian people with is quest for a just and peaceful relationship between Iran and the US. A ton more has to be done in this regard, after 25+ years of conflict, if we are ever to have the opportunity to bring Iran back into the community of non-radical nations. They have a lot to say, and we have a lot to say. Let's say it directly. I thought that President Bush blew a great opportunity top break through the noise, in this regard, when he failed to respond to the Iranian President's rambling and bizarre letter to him of this past Spring. The penchant of short term-thinking, Western political leadership to "put off to tomorrow (when things demand attention) what we can begin to resolve today" has really hurt us vis a vis Iran. Think how different things could be today if we had approached beginning a relationship with
Iran 10 years ago (when Clinton was president) or 5 years ago, post-9/11, in the way we have with the Vietnamese, with whom we have even more negative "history"?
--Both must listen to what the other has to say and treat it with respect, rather than just dismiss it, and the best way to get the more intransigent guy to listen to you is to listen to him. This doesn't mean agreeing with him or compromising your principles, but instead of name
calling, it does mean listening and attempting to find points of common values or understanding. On the Iran issue, I believe that the European-Russian initiative to take them at their word and discuss giving them "peaceful" nuclear power, if perhaps just part of a
charade, is an important part of negotiation that appeals to Iranian people who ave been told the "peaceful nuclear power story. When the Palestinians complain about their ancestors' evacuation, forced or voluntary, from villages inside Israel, we can't ignore the seriousness
of that to them and must show empathy, even if we believe that this evacuation is offset by an almost identical number of Jews forced out of Arab lands, and that their solution to this issue (repatriation back to their villages in Israel) is a non-starter. Similarly, they must be
brought to understand, on a community to community level, the corrosive impact to their own interests of their attempt to recreate history to negate any Jewish significance to Jerusalem (or refute that the Jews of today aren't the "real" Jews of the bible), in refutation of the Bible
and of the Q'uran, or to hurt Israel's legitimacy somehow by refuting the Holocaust.
--Based upon the foregoing communication, both sides have to be brought to the ability to apologize for past wrongs. I know this sounds wacky in a world where we are taught by lawyers never to concede when we do something wrong for fear of creating precedent or liability (and the same thinking is held by diplomats), but hearing someone apologize to you for hurting you, even if not intentional, goes a long way in human psychology towards forgiveness and, perhaps more importantly, towards compromise. How many times have we heard a doctor's patient who receives incorrect care say that if only the doctor had apologized, they never would have sued? In the Arab world, where political discourse at the level of the "Arab Street"seems to be pathologically consumed with the concept of not being treated with respect and as an equal by the West (and more importantly, by their own leaders), and which seems to be suffers from a massive inferiority complex, how powerful could the effect be of an expression that we both suffer pain, we feel yours and we apologize for what we did to cause it? The order of this dialogue must be carefully choreographed, and it requires brave leaders on both sides to make it work in a reciprocal manner, but it can be a powerful part of generational healing, compromise and perhaps reformation of the Islamic world.
If we attempt to take the lessons of repentance during the Days of Awe, and apply them to our international discourse -- why still maintaining our core principles and full range of options -- we may have a chance for some progress, both personal and internationally, in the coming
years. I am not urging a disarmament or a Woodstockian's image of a utopian future, but we must look to our principles for a path to a better future. At times, given the leadership on the other side, this approach may look hopeless, but we must continue to try.
Shana Tovah.
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