A Prophetic Peace

Alick Isaacs

Description

Personal reflections on Judaism and war

Challenging deeply held convictions about Judaism, Zionism, war, and peace, Alick Isaacs's combat experience in the second Lebanon war provoked him to search for a way of reconciling the belligerence of religion with its messages of peace. In his insightful readings of the texts of Biblical prophecy and rabbinic law, Isaacs draws on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Martin Buber, among others, to propose an ambitious vision of religiously inspired peace. Rejecting the notion of Jewish theology as partial to war and vengeance, this eloquent and moving work points to the ways in which Judaism can be a path to peace. A Prophetic Peace describes an educational project called Talking Peace whose aim is to bring individuals of different views together to share varying understandings of peace.

Acknowledgments
Preface – Lebanon II
1 – Politics, Anti-Politics and Religion
2 - Irenic Scholarship
3 – Theological Disarmament
4 - Deconstruction and the Prophetic Voice
5 – Prophetic Peace
6 – The Rabbinic Voice
7 – A Prayer for Peace
8 – Peace Education
Afterword – Beating Softly
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Jewish Studies
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Judaísmo
• 2006 Lebanon War
• Zionism
• Theology
• Philosophy of religion
• Judaism
• Judaïsme

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 06 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253005649
• Langue: English

Extrait

A PROPHETIC PEACE
A P ROPHETIC P EACE
JUDAISM, RELIGION, AND POLITICS
A LICK I SAACS
Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail [e-mail]
© 2011 by Alick Isaacs
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronicor mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any informationstorage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. TheAssociation of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutesthe only exception to this prohibition.
♾ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper forPrinted Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Isaacs, Alick, [date]– A prophetic peace : Judaism, religion, and politics / Alick Isaacs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35684-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00564-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Lebanon War, 2006—Personal narratives, Israeli.2. Soldiers—Israel—Biography. 3. Arab-Israeli conflict—Peace. 4. War—Religious aspects—Judaism. 5. Israel. Tseva haganah le-Yisra’el. I. Title. DS87.65.I83 2011 956.9204′5242092—dc22 [B]
2011011594
1  2  3  4  5  16  15  14  13  12  11
For Shuli
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Lebanon II
CHAPTER 1 Politics, Anti-Politics, and Religion
CHAPTER 2 Irenic Scholarship
CHAPTER 3 Theological Disarmament
CHAPTER 4 Deconstruction and the Prophetic Voice
CHAPTER 5 Messianic Peace
CHAPTER 6 The Rabbinic Voice
CHAPTER 7 A Prayer for Peace
CHAPTER 8 Peace Education
Afterword: Beating Softly
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with all books, A Prophetic Peace is the product of a groupeffort. While the responsibility for everything I have written is my own, Iam extremely conscious of the many others whose inspiration and teachinghave helped me as I have engaged in the processes of studying, thinking, andwriting. I have been blessed with wonderful friends and colleagues, who havegenerously shared their thoughts, knowledge, and ideas with me, as well aswith students who have taught me a great deal. A number of people havebeen kind enough to give hours of their time reading drafts, making corrections,and offering suggestions.
First of all, I would like to mention Jeffrey Perl, the founding editor of Common Knowledge, with whom I have shared a thrilling correspondencefor a number of years. It is sometimes hard to acknowledge the influence ofsomeone whose ideas and creativity have affected me so deeply that I cannotalways distinguish his thinking from my own. Jeffrey was the first person tohelp me articulate clearly that my true passion is the pursuit of peace andthat a combination of post-linguistic-turn philosophy and classical Jewishthought might be my path toward it. He has been a wonderful guide throughmuch of the literature quoted in this book and a sounding board for myevolving ideas. He is a brilliant thinker and a remarkable editor to whom Iam honored to express my deep gratitude.
I thank Michael and Geulah Rosenak for years of love and support.Michael spent hours in discussion with me at the dinner table and in coffeeshops after reading the entire manuscript and offered his unique wordsof wisdom and gentle encouragement. Avinoam Rosenak deeply influencedmy ability to connect with the teachings of the Maharal and Rav Kook andthrough them to present authentically the notion of peace’s centrality toJewish thought in the classical Jewish tradition. Tova Hartman has sharedhours of discussion with me and has generously given of her time to readvarious drafts of many of the chapters of this book.
Thanks to Vivienne Burstein for her extensive and attentive editing.Without her, this book would never have been completed. I also thankRichard Wolffe, Benjamin Sommer, Yishai Rosen-Zvi, Adam Afterman,Marc Brettler, Moshe Meir, Yair Lifshitz, Susan Handelman, Avi Sagi, and Menachem Fisch, all of whom read sections of the book and offered theircomments, encouragement, advice, and criticisms. Thanks also to JanetRabinowitch, Brian Herrmann, and Merryl Sloane and also to the readersappointed by Indiana University Press, whose insights, comments, and correctionshave been most helpful. I am very grateful for them all. I would liketo make a special mention of Sharon Leshem-Zinger and Stephen Markowitzwho, together with Avinoam Rosenak, have worked with me on the TalkingPeace project briefly described in chapter 8 . This project has provided mewith the rare opportunity of trying to put ideas into practice in the hope ofhelping to make peace in today’s Middle East.
I would like to acknowledge the support of the two institutions where Iam privileged to work, the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the HebrewUniversity and the Shalom Hartman Institute. Both of these have provideda stimulating environment in which to test my ideas with both students andcolleagues. The members of the seminars “Political Theology,” “Torah fromSinai,” and “Violence” at the Hartman Institute will no doubt recognize theimpact of our shared study on many of the arguments outlined in this book.My special thanks go to David Hartman and Donniel Hartman, the co-direc-torsof the Hartman Institute, and to Howie Dietcher of the Melton Centrefor their spiritual and financial support of this project.
A special mention is due to the soldiers of the Alexandroni brigade whoshared the experiences with me in Lebanon that spurred the writing of thisbook. In particular, I thank Josh Amaru, Shachar Hoshmand, Shaul Vider,and Lee Golan without whom I would quite literally not have survived.
I would like to thank my beloved family. My father, Bernard Isaacs,died long before the writing of this book began, and my mother, DorothyIsaacs, passed away as I was preparing the final manuscript for publication.Their love of Torah and of peace—as well as my father’s tutelage in the artof writing—is a beacon of inspiration to me. I thank my brothers, Lionel,Aubrey, and Michael, for their love, encouragement, and comments on variousaspects of the manuscript. I also thank my wonderful children, Hillel,Noam, Talia, Ori, and Hadas, for whom I wrote this book and who providedme daily with the practical challenge of keeping the peace! Finally, I thankmy wife and companion, Shuli, for more than anyone should ever write ina public acknowledgment. To her, for that and for so much more, I dedicatethis book.
A LICK I SAACS Jerusalem
I NTRODUCTION
Lebanon II
      The second Lebanon war, which took place in the summer of 2006,is the event that spurred me to write this book. I participated in that waras a reserve soldier in the Israeli army. At the time, I was thirty-eight yearsold. The confusion that surrounded the Israeli army’s handling of the war,the lack of supplies, the discussions and debates that took place during thecourse of the conflict—all had a profound effect upon me. I returned fromthe war with a compulsion to rethink my attitudes toward Judaism, Zionism,war, and peace.
In the thick of combat I realized how complex the challenge of honestlyreconciling the potential belligerence of religion with its messages of peace is.It became clear to me that dismantling the connection between violence andreligion would take more than a dovishly selective reading of the Bible or theTalmud or a prayer book. But I came away from the war equally convincedthat secular political philosophies were unequal to the task of winning widespreadsupport for peace in Israel. During the war, as much as I was challengedby my thoughts about religion, I felt implicated by the ominous sideof statehood. I shuddered at the potential dangers of the brand of militarismthat secular liberal Zionism had introduced into the Jewish story.
When I returned from the war, I wrote a detailed account of my experiences,which was published in the interdisciplinary journal CommonKnowledge. 1 While I will not reproduce that account in its entirety here, Ifeel that some of the events that took place in the latter stages of the war willserve as a meaningful opening to this book. My story begins with the burningof the trees, which took place outside the southern Lebanese village ofRas-Bayada.
The Burning of the Trees
    When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making waragainst it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof bywielding an axe against them; for thou mayest eat of them, but thou shalt not cut them down; for is the tree of the field[a] man, that it should be besieged of thee?
—Deuteronomy 20:19
    Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thycedars. Wail, O cypress tree, for the cedar is fallen, Becausethe glorious ones are spoiled; Wail, O ye oaks of Bashan, Forthe strong forest is come down.
—Zechariah 11:1–2
In the last few days of the war, my unit reached its final destination—asmall cluster of houses facing the town of Ras-Bayada in southern Lebanon.Our mission was to hold the coastal road that ran from there to the Israeliborder above Rosh Hanikra. I remember that when I first saw the place, Ithought to myself, “What the hell do these people want to make war for?They must be mad. The sun glistens on the sea. The air is fresh and the landis fertile. This little place is a paradise.”
The house my unit was assigned to occupy was primitive, poorlyequipped, and ugly. But the ground and the setting were quaintly beautiful.With a washing of paint and some well-chosen pieces of furniture andlamps—I thought to myself—the people here could make a fortune rentingout their homes as holiday cottages. The ho