In advance of the Passover season, please feel free to re-publish or
otherwise use "On Passover and Peace" (below) where it might be
helpful.
Other writings that might touch people at Pesach are:
Sarah and Hagar
http://www.igc.org/traubman/sarah.htm
The Song of Songs (of Rav Kook)
http://www.igc.org/traubman/song.htm
With my warmest wishes, Len Traubman
================================================
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury-
News, and North Jersey Herald-News during Passover 1997
ON PASSOVER AND PEACE
by Lionel Traubman
I am a pediatric dentist. I know something about "root cause."
If a 2-year-old child has cavities everywhere, I look at his or her
relationship to sweet food and drinks. If my young patients are personally
troubled, I usually see troubled relationships at home or school. When my
nurses and I need to resolve how we work together, we first sit down and
carefully listen to one another. "Shema,
hear," Judaism instructs us. Health and survival itself, experience tells
us, depends on relationships.
When I look for answers to "impossible" problems with
"irreconcilable" differences, like Israeli-Arab conflicts, I go
deeper -- to religion, to the root source of my tradition of wisdom.
If we accept Abraham`s profound insight that all is one, then we know that we
are neighbors forever -- all the nations, races, religions, species. There is
no independent survival any more. And in my life of working with others,
especially adversaries, nothing replaces face-to-face dialogue.
We Jews and Arabs have a shared history, homeland and destiny. Yet we do not
know each other. Rarely have we had meals or serious conversations together.
But there are some Jews and Arabs -- not enough -- who are beginning to get
together with their "enemies." They talk in earnest and truly get to
know one another, in Israel and also in America. They risk and create new
models in dialogue, redefining what is possible. They prove that relationships
make the difference.
Dr. Andrew Bard Schmookler, a Jew and a leading
intellectual integrator of the 20th century, is concerned about the way we`ve
been talking to each other in half-truths, shouting across a cultural chasm,
perpetuating contempt for each other in a cultural war. He says we must
challenge ourselves to talk to each other across the chasm. What can you teach
me? What can I learn from you?
Schmookler implores all sides to listen more
carefully and seek the truth about the other`s life experiences and
perceptions. Together we can then seek a higher level of wisdom that brings
together different pieces of the whole truth. We will then discover a better and
more compelling way of living in respect and partnership.
At this Passover celebration of freedom, perhaps more than ever, we will feel
the urgency to finally end the military occupation of another, fine people, and
the terrorist killings of innocent civilians. This culture of war, fear,
revenge and hopelessness is bondage for all .
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow men. The rest is merely
commentary." This is the wisdom of Rabbi Hillel 2.000 years ago, when
asked about the essence of Torah itself. To this the beloved Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph later instructed
us, simply, "Love they neighbor as thyself."
Now, in the 20th century, with its own political realities, Rabbi Abraham Isaac
Kook has given us a wonderful contemporary Kabbalah
wisdom relevant to the "expanded identification" we all need to
embody to bring the peace process to life forever. This brilliant scholar and
mystic is remembered for his ability to bring together battling religious and
social factions, making harmony out of seemingly irreconcilable differences.
Born in 1865, he was Chief Rabbi of Palestine until his death in 1935. He has
been called "Shepherd of Jerusalem."
Rabbi Kook`s "Song of Songs" is an appeal for community, for
inclusive citizens. It concludes, "There is one who ascends with all these
songs in unison -- the song of the soul, the song of the nation, the song of
humanity, the song of the cosmos -- resounding together, blending in harmony,
circulating the sap of life, the sound of holy joy."
If we, and all humankind, allow Jewish wisdom to touch our minds and hearts, it
can change us and give us the courage to approach our relationships differently
and better. We can live our lives knowing that there is no individual survival.
"We" means those living at our side, our Arab neighbors, with their
own ancient traditions and wisdom. We must now have the courage to see them and
meet them as people. What can I learn from you? What can we create together?
We have returned to the land of Israel. But spiritually we are not quite yet
out of the wilderness. At Passover, it is well to recall how our courage and
passion for freedom launched us out of Egypt, and how we were carried as
"on eagles` wings" to freedom, for the sole purpose of being "a
kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." Priests, of course, bring people
closer to the highest, the profound, God. We can do that. We can be an
inspiration to the whole planet.
This Passover, let us determine to build bridges of understanding across
personal and cultural chasms, turning strangers into neighbors, enemies into
partners, finally freeing ourselves from the slavery and great costs of
alienation. What is ancient and profound in Judaism is, after all, what really
works in everyday life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lionel Traubman, in Spring, 2001, four years after publishing this article,
recently retired from his practice of Dentistry for Infants and Children in San
Francisco. He is a former Director of the San Francisco Dental Society, and was
regional alumni President of Alpha Omega Jewish dental fraternity. Dr. Traubman
was Editor of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and of the California
Society of Dentistry for Children. He wrote and published THE ORECKOVSKY
FAMILY: FROM RUSSIA TO AMERICA, depicting his pioneer ancestors` immigration
following the first pogroms of the early 1880s. The book resides in 100
libraries in North America and Europe. For 20 years, he and his wife, Libby,
have devoted themselves to successful Russian-American and Jewish-Palestinian
dialogue, at home and overseas. They are part of an 8-year-old
Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue in San Mateo, California, where they
reside. Their family homepage is at http://www.igc.org/traubman/.
Lionel Traubman, DDS, MSD
1448 Cedarwood Drive, San Mateo, CA 94403
Voice: (650) 574-8303 -- Fax: (650) 573-1217
E-mail:LTraubman@igc.org