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Freedom is a Sacred Disagreement: Commentary on Passover 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
I am a Zionist—and that is unpopular to say out loud. Like anyone else who has ever dreamed of moving to Israel, I know what I love about Israel, and I have ideas for changes I want to see in Israel and which political party might earn my vote if I could ever participate in Israeli elections. Like almost every Zionist—and certainly every anti-Zionist—I believe that the violence that pervades today’s reality cannot be the future of Israel.
I am a Zionist because I believe Jews deserve a land that they can call their own, and the Land of Israel has been inhabited by Jews—and their neighbors, sometimes but not always outnumbering the Jews—for thousands of years. I believe all peoples and all persons deserve a place that they can call home.
Because of the history that I have been taught, I do not understand Zionism as a project that necessitates removing Muslims, Arabs, or other inhabitants from the Holy Land—yet I am aware of cruel acts that have been committed in the name of Zionism. Many Palestinians and many students of history identify patterns of times when Jewish pioneers of the past and even Israelis today have acted hurtfully towards Arabs, Muslims, or others who have not shared in the Zionist dream. Of course, it is easy to cite bombings, shootings, kidnappings, and other acts of terrorism committed by Palestinian groups against Israeli citizens and against other—not always Jewish—inhabitants of the Jewish State.
The purpose of analyzing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should not be to crown just one nation as the true heroes of history and to vilify the others as utterly wicked neighbors. In fact, the goal of dialoguing—of me, a Zionist, speaking to anyone who would call themselves an anti-Zionist—should not be to prove to others that my debate partner is wrong (even if I might think so). The real aim of listening to one another should be finding the common ground on which we stand—and learning how to share it.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations at more than 500 university campuses since October 7, 2023, have undoubtedly increased the American public’s awareness of the plight of Palestinians. However, just how much this heightened awareness has led to deeper reconciliation—civil dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, or peaceful circles for personal story-sharing among Jewish and Muslim students—is much less clear. Instead, headlines have tilted towards the incitements: instances when pro-Palestinian protestors at college campuses have harassed visibly Jewish students and faculty; when armed forces have forcibly stopped pro-Palestinian protestors; and occasionally, as was the case at the University of California, when pro-Israel counter-protestors have stormed pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
I do not feel confident that I will ever get to the bottom of who threw the first proverbial stone in the birth pangs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that started before there even was an Israeli state. Even though Zionism does not always look like the Zionism I want, and, even though pro-Palestine encampments have not invited the amount of dialogue this complex history deserves—I do not wish to see university students silenced. Physical violence has no place in civil society, and verbal attacks are hardly a step up—but I would rather see students, who learn through errors (even hurtful errors), redirected, not removed.
Before this Passover, I have never felt so hypocritical when declaring in my prayers that this holiday is somehow zeman cherutenu, “the season of our freedom”—as we mention in the Amidah four times a day during these eight days. Are we really free? In the homeland of my heart, hostages await their release from Hamas’ terrorists, and Gazans protesting against Hamas’ negligent and cruel governance still remain vulnerable to the operations of the Israel Defense Forces. Meanwhile I, a Jew in the United States, am witnessing the illegal deportation of legal immigrants in what Francis Scott Key called in 1814 “the land of the free.”
I do not know if what the future should look like for Israel or Palestine is a subject where I would ultimately agree with Mohsen Mahdawi, a leader in notoriously disruptive pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. I nonetheless admire wholeheartedly his alleged affability towards pro-Israel students, even inviting them to have coffee together one-on-one. It is hard for me to believe that Mahdawi posed a credible threat deserving of his arrest this past Monday. So too, I might guess that Mahmoud Khalil and I have a lot to disagree on. Nonetheless, I suspect that this Palestinian student at Columbia University who has spoken out against antisemitism and declared that “the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined” constitutes less of a threat to Jewish Americans than would be suggested by his arrest a little more than one month ago.
Shortly before detaining Khalil, the federal government declared its intention to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” These detainments of Khalil and Mahdawi however seem to be the incorrect response to the phenomenon. Likewise, Rümeysa Öztürk, Yunseo Chung, and Badar Khan Suri are just a few of the too many young scholars and students whose deportations will not improve Israel’s public relations in North America. In light of these character profiles, I fear that the money that the federal government has threatened to withhold from Northwestern, Harvard, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown points to a government with a different goal in mind. Eradicating antisemitism keeps appearing in the press releases, but the subtext reads as an attempt to dismantle higher education—removing students, removing funding, removing professors, and removing policies.
When it comes to education, a democracy does well to expand educational opportunities, rather than reduce them. Few, if any, public schools will be aided by a Department of Education that withholds funding because of a policy disagreement. Few, if any, officers will benefit from the Secretary of Defense banning from the Naval Academy’s Library Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Probably zero college students will benefit from the Department of Education phasing out its oversight of federal student loans. A certain narrow insistence on there being only one correct approach to education is likely to misfire and instead target all of education.
In 1856, Tzevi Hirsch Edelman “Chen Tov” of Königsberg (now in Germany) published in Chemdah Genuzah (חמדה גנוזה, “A Treasured Delight”) a previously unpublished cautionary tale he had copied from a manuscript found in a London-based rabbinical seminary (seemingly, Jews College, which opened the year before) (p. XXI). This letter, signed by “הלל החסר מארץ נוד” (“Hillel the Deficient from the Land of Nod,”) (p. 21a), recounts a brouhaha over the writings of the Iberian rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon (also known as Maimonides, 1138–1204), who drew from ancient Greek philosophers, whose beliefs were often at odds with the Jewish religion. This medieval “Letter Regarding the Books of Maimonides” (“מכתב ע״ד ספרי הרמב״ם”) from Verona (according to Edelman, p. XXI), in a period of anti-Jewish legislation, reads as follows:
עתה ימים רבים ששמעתי שבא בפררא א׳ מאשכנז שמו שלמה פטיט… וכי הוא… שהחתים אגרות מצד חכמי אשכנז דוברות סרה על דברי רבינו משה ובפרט על מורה הנבוכים כדי לגזור על ביעורן… הביאו אותו בכור… לפני חכמי ישראל וחכמי גוים לדעת את המינות והכפירות שמצא בהם הוא… ולא כיוונו בזה לכבוד אמונת התלמוד ושום דבר אמונה אלא בעבור שנתחדשה שנאה וקנאה ביניהם… ולכן מצאה כת אחת תואנ׳ על האחרת באמור הם מיני׳ ועוסקי׳ בספרי מינות והוליכו עמהם כמה וכמה כרכים מס׳ מדע ומורה והלכו אל צרפת והלשינו את הכת האחרת לפני חכמי צרפת בדברי מינות וכפירה… ואותם החכמים המשולחי׳ לא דקדקו בספרים ונתנו אוזן אל אותם המדברי׳ והחליטו גזירתם לבער ס׳ המורה והמדע בכל אשר ימצאו שם וכל ההוגה בהם יחרם הוא … ולא היה דיים בזה, אבל נתנו למאכולת אש לעיני השמש כל אותם הכרכים, ולא דיים בתבערה לבד אמנם עוד האש אשר בה שרפום הבעירוהו מן הנר הגדול שהיה דולק בבית הכור הכומרייא הגדולה של פריש לפני המזבח, והכומריים הבעירו אש ונתנוה אליהם ונר, ונשרפו הספרים ברחוב עיר פריש לעיני כל העיר… ותהי הרעה הולכת וגדלת עד ששתי הכיתות נלחמו במונשפלייר… והעידו עליהם… לפני שופטי הארץ… ואז נתחדשו הגזירות הגדולות את הקהלות הרגו יותר מג׳ אלפים ואת ספרי התלמוד שלהן כולם נתנו לשריפת ולמאכולת אש ואז יצאה הגזירה שלא ילמדו עוד ספרי תלמוד בגלוי עד היום הזה.
Now, it was many days ago when I heard that one individual came to Ferrara [now in Italy] from Germany. His name was Shemu’el Petit… Indeed, he… was the one who signed epistles on behalf of the sages of Germany speaking askance regarding the words of our Rabbi Mosheh, and especially [his book] Moreh Nevukhim (מורה נבוכים, “Guide of the Perplexed”), so much so as to decree their banishment… They brought that young man… in front of the sages of [the people] Israel and the sages of the [gentile] nations so that they may come to realize the heresy and infidelity that he found in them… And they did not intend for this to [affect] the dignity of faith in the Talmud or any matter of [orthodox Jewish] faith—but a hatred and zeal had been newly established between them… Thus, one party levied a complaint against the other, saying, “They are heretics and study heretical books,” and led them with them some number of volumes of [Maimonides’] Sefer HaMadda (ספר המדע, “The Book of Knowledge”) and Moreh [Nevukhim] and came to France and badmouthed that other party before the sages of France regarding these matters of heresy and infidelity… But those delegated sages were not careful with books. Yet they gave their ear to those who were speaking and decided their decree: to banish the books of Moreh and [Sefer] HaMadda with all that may be found there, and that anyone who may review them would be excommunicated… But this was not sufficient! Moreover, they gave over to a consuming fire, in the eyes of [all beneath] the sun all of those volumes. But this was not sufficient, despite the great conflagration! Further, they transferred the fire with which they burned [all of] it from the great firepit that had been lit in the boiler room in front of the altar at the largest monastery in Paris! The monks lit the flame and positioned that with the great firepit for them. All of the books burned in the streets in the city of Paris, for all eyes of the whole city [to see]… This malignance went and increased until the two parties fought [with one another all the way over in] Montpellier… They testified… before the [gentile] judges of the land… Then new great decrees came about! From the [Jewish communities], those [gentile rulers] murdered more than 3,000, and they gave to the fires and the all-consuming bonfire all of the books of their Talmud. Then a new decree emerged: that those [Jews] shall not study any further the books of the Talmud publicly—[which stands as a law] until this very day! (Pp. 18b-19b.)
We cannot just burn it all down. Nor can we nor should we burn just a piece of it; it could all go down in the same flame.
I am a Zionist. If I want to share with others what I love about Israel, I am going to have to speak from the heart. Beating others into submissively loving Israel, removing those who disagree with me, censoring literature, or destroying the whole pro-Palestinian enterprise will never inspire more people to appreciate Israel. Those who lack the patience for nuance should not be disrupting society; moreover, those who lack the patience for nuance should certainly not be arresting peaceful students who are still discovering who they are and how to live in this world.
Nearly two millennia ago, the Babylonian Talmud reports, there was a veteran sage in Yavneh who could offer 150 proofs that a ritually impure animal was in fact pure (Eyruvin 13b). Our tradition admires those who can explain the viewpoints of the people with whom we most vehemently disagree—even if such ideas might offend our religious sensibilities or even God’s sensibilities. If we are ourselves unwilling to consider the opinions of ‘the other side,’ to whom do we have a right to preach?
The quest for liberty in our time is not the journey to the most unimpeachable argument; liberation entails shaping our world into a more empathic society—communities and neighbors who care for strangers and hear each other out. To be free again will mean to speak our minds, both compassionately and freely. To be passionate and respectful in our disagreements is a sacred freedom.
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