In 2009, President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, with a simple, moving speech. He spoke of the challenge of practicing peace, and of the concept of just war. And concluded:
The one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still reach for those ideals that will make the world a better place. Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.
Insert cynicism here ______________.
Last Thursday and Friday, I led Rosh Hashanah services. When all was said and done, I offered at least fourteen formal prayers for peace. Peace prayers are consistent with the High Holiday theme of teshuvah, repentance and return. We as individuals can reflect, repent and change; so can a city, a country, a species, a world.
On Saturday, my youngest son said something about our cat and I realized: I hadn’t actually meant a word of these fourteen prayers for peace.
Last night, this 18-year-old young man left for Israel. For nine months, he will participate in a work-study program, Habonim-Dror Workshop. After nine summers at a Canadian Labor Zionist youth camp, he knows his movement politics. He supports Israeli left-wing causes, including economic justice, LGBTQ acceptance, and environmental preservation. He embraces Rabin’s vision of equal rights for Israeli Arabs and good-faith negotiation with Palestinians. He is prepared with ideology.
He will spend half the year at Kibbutz Ein Dor in Northern Israel. Eight hours before he left, my husband remarked, “Ein Dor is only 120 kilometres (74 miles) from Damascus.”
Our son looked up from playing with his kitten and said, “You know what is starting to stress me out? The kitten is so big now that when she climbs the upright mattress, it wobbles like it might fall. Will you take care of her while I’m gone?”
He had no idea he had just put into words our thoughts about him.
He does not believe the U.S. will attack Syria. He is prepared with love, idealism, and optimism. We, his parents, are prepared with skepticism, fatalism and fear.
Often I speak of the tragedy of human learning. As soon as elders gain wisdom from their many mistakes, they retire. They turn the world over to a younger generation, poised to make the same mistakes. And so it goes, generation after generation; war after war; injustice after injustice. Nothing can really change.
Beginning today, I shall see the tragedy differently, as a tragedy of lost innocence. Elders learn that mistakes and their costs are the way of the world. They take Murphy’s Law and Peter’s Principle seriously. If anything can go wrong it will. Everything takes twice as long as you think. Leaders are just ordinary people, promoted to their highest level of incompetence. All of recorded human history documents only 30 years of international peace.
My son does not need to carry that skepticism. Let him and his fellow travelers carry sparks of love. Maybe love alone won’t change the world. But lack of love certainly will, and not for the better.
I’ll choose to believe that teshuvah is possible. We as individuals can reflect, repent and change; so can a city, a country, a species, a world.
On Yom Kippur, I’ll offer another fourteen formal prayers for peace. But in my heart, I’ll hold the words of the fictional Captain John Sheridan of the space station Babylon 5, penned by J.M. Straczynski:
In the last few years, we’ve stumbled.
We’ve stumbled at peace and we’ve stumbled at justice.
And when you stumble a lot, you start looking at your feet.
And we have to make people lift their eyes back to the horizon of the line of ancestors behind us saying, “Make my life have meaning!”
And see our inheritors before us saying, “Create the world we will live in!”
Safe travels, son. Safe travels for you and your generation of fellow travelers.
Image: pina92.blog.onet.pl. Cross-posted at OnSophiaStreet.
Rosh Hashanah
Pronounced: roshe hah-SHAH-nah, also roshe ha-shah-NAH, Origin: Hebrew, the Jewish new year.
