The Donkey of Our Enemy

Been another hard week.

Marked by the pain, continued pain for Israel, continued pain at the levels of antisemitism in this country.

We had a Council meeting this week and I took the opportunity to gauge where our Council thought I should be speaking out. A couple wanted me to speak more about antisemitism.

I abhor antisemitism.

I don’t accept that London or this country is becoming a no-go area for Jews. The phrase sticks in my throat a little, I think it’s deliberately alarmist and I don’t like it. But it’s hard now, I know it is.

And I feel, in myself, a gentle increase in the sorts of protection I take for myself – the times I go out wearing a cap over a Kippah. Tiny increments which add up.

So what to do?

And what about that other thing that’s going on in my mind, and in my heart. This space exists for the other in all this.

The Muslims of this country, who are subject to disturbing attack, sometimes from high levels of political leadership, from which comes no apology and no accountability. It’s very disturbing. To my Muslim cousins, preparing for Ramadan, I wish Ramadan Mubarak – even at, particularly at these sensitive times. If you hate antisemitism, and I hate antisemitism – you have to hate anti-Muslim hatred. You can’t be in favour of selected hatred of one group of people by another group of people.

And so too, I feel this pull in both directions when it comes to Israel and Gaza. My heart breaks for the families of the hostages, for the families with sons and daughters serving in strange plains of battle, who never thought that their military service, or reserve duty would consist of having to go door to door through the rubble of booby trapped Gazan tunnels in search of terrorists and hostages. It’s inconceivably awful.

But my heart breaks too for the millions of people in Gaza facing intense deprivation and for the Gazans who are mourning a loss of life that is staggering – even as much as I distrust Hamas as a reliable source for how many have been killed – it’s staggering. And I can’t handle the maths.

I can’t handle having to work out how many Gazans on a scale of responsibility for the acts of 7^th October from none to considerable , how many of those Gazan lives is it acceptable for Israel to be responsible for killing based on the numbers of Israeli lives killed or taken or wounded or in pain. My heart doesn’t allow me to do that kind of maths.

 

And the verse that went through my mind as I was trying to think through how to respond to the appalling acts of antisemitism here and the deeply painful loss of life there is one we read a couple of weeks ago.

כִּֽי־תִרְאֶ֞ה חֲמ֣וֹר שֹׂנַאֲךָ֗ רֹבֵץ֙ תַּ֣חַת מַשָּׂא֔וֹ וְחָדַלְתָּ֖ מֵעֲזֹ֣ב ל֑וֹ עָזֹ֥ב תַּעֲזֹ֖ב עִמּֽוֹ׃ {ס}        

 

If you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and you would be tempted to refrain from helping it, help it!

It’s a brilliant image – here I am making my own way along and I see this donkey struggling, and the Torah knows what goes through my heart – that this is not only not my problem, but it’s my enemies problem, and the Torah knows I will be tempted to refrain.

Taazov Imo – don’t walk by.

And I know, there’s a Talmudic dicta that in the name of Rabbi Shmuel Bar Rav Yitzhak in the name of Rav, that says this only applies to an Israelite enemy – it doesn’t mean the enemy on the other side of the border.  But that’s not the only voice in our tradition that shapes, I think, the way we need to – we still need to – treat the donkeys of our enemies regardless of who that enemy is.

Midrash Tanhuma Mishpatim 1:2

R. Alexandri explained it as follows: Two mules are being led along a road by men who despise each other. Suddenly, one of the mules falls to the ground. As the one who is leading the second mule passes by, he sees the mule of the other man stretched out beneath his load, and he says to himself: “Is it not written in the law that If thou seest the ass of him that hateth thee lying under its burden, thou shalt forbear to pass him by; thou shalt verily release it for him (Exod. 23:5)?” What did he do? He turned back to help the other man reload his mule, and then accompanied him on the way. In fact, while working with him he began to talk to the owner of the mule, saying: “Let us loosen it a little on this side, let us tighten it down on this side,” until he reloaded the animal with him. It came to pass that they had made peace between themselves. The driver of the mule (that had fallen) said to himself: “I cannot believe that he hates me; see how concerned he was when he saw that my mule and I were in distress.” As a result, they went into the inn, and ate and drank together. Finally they became extremely attached to each other.

 

The point is that taking care of the donkey of our enemy is how we build our way out of enmity towards something that is not just filled with violence in one direction begetting greater violence in the other, begetting greater violence back again and back again.

This is Rebeinu Bachya, the thirteenth century commentator of Zaragossa talking about a parallel verse – yes we get more or less the same instruction twice in the Torah

The promise contained in our verse is that if you assist your enemy with their falling donkey they will eventually appreciate you and become אחיך, “your brother.” When you assist them they will forget the “hatred” between you and only remember the bond of love that unites brothers. (on Deut 22.4)

 

I know, that Midrash and that commentary are a little twee. I know it’s harder, this awful millennia old conflict between Israel and those people over that border. But the dynamic of hate in one direction driving more hate in the opposite and on and on until tens of thousands lie dead cannot be the greatest calling of our time.

Here’s another verse, one with chilling, for me, implications for our time.

אִם־רָעֵ֣ב שֹׂ֭נַאֲךָ הַאֲכִלֵ֣הוּ לָ֑חֶם וְאִם־צָ֝מֵ֗א הַשְׁקֵ֥הוּ מָֽיִם

If your enemy is hungry, give them bread to eat;
If they are thirsty, give them water to drink.

(Prov 25:21)

And I know the dicta that reads the verse about study – if a person is hungry for Torah bring them to the study hall. But that’s not the only voice in our tradition that shapes, I think, the way we need to – we still need to – treat our enemies in their hunger and in their thirst.

Rebeinu Bachya again, in a comment on how Abraham sent Hagar away from their tent – with a container of water, shares this

) One may view the fact that Avraham provided Hagar with bread and water as an allusion to something that he foresaw concerning the future when his descendants would be oppressed by the Arabs. He foresaw that the Ishmaelites would hate the Jews more than any other nation on earth hated them. Avraham was careful not to deny Hagar and Ishmael the necessities to ensure their survival, something with which Jews provide even their enemies. He modelled himself after Proverbs 25,21 “If your enemy is hungry feed them bread; if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.” (Genesis 21:14)

 

Rabeinu Bachya didn’t understand this verse, from Proverbs, as only applying to Jews. He understood it to mean, if you are caught in a cycle of hatred and fear, even if you know that that hatred and fear is millenia old and even possibly hard baked into a sort of religio-ethno-something, you still give your hungry enemy bread and your thirsty enemy water.

Rav Moshe Amiel was born and educated in the great Yeshiva communities of Eastern Europe, before fleeing Nazism in 1936 to become Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. In his essay,

Justice in the Jewish State According to the Torah, he remarkably cites a Christian scholar in total agreement, when discussing this verse, of ours, from Proverbs

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him bread, and if he is thirsty, give him water" (Proverbs 21:21). And the Christian scholar Kornaval comments beautifully on the verse "You shall not abhor an Egyptian because you have lived in his land" (Deuteronomy 23:8): "So, even for the kind of hospitality that the Jews received in Egypt after they tortured them with all kinds of hard and cruel labor and also shed their blood, the Torah commands them without hating the Egyptians and acknowledging them with gratitude because they lived in their country - if this commandment is not close to loving enemies, then I really don't understand the Hebrew language." And these things are ancient parts of who we are as Jews.

 

I’m not a military tactician. I don’t know the best way to bring the hostages out. I’m not on the front line, I know all these things, but I just failed to understand something on the radio yesterday morning. There was a discussion about a new port that the Americans are due to build on the coast of Gaza, and the plan is to check aid with Israelis in Cyrpus or something, and ship it into Gaza that way. And the speaker said, well, of course there’s a perfectly useable port, just 30 km north of Gaza in Ashdod, but … and well I understand the hatred and the anger and desire for revenge. But it’s not good. And, perhaps even more importantly, it won’t get us to a place where the sons of Abraham, the brothers who both have fallen donkeys at this point, get to re-find in one other our relative humanity.

We can’t keep going on this path, and the only other path – the one that leads out of this place, comes through being able, somehow, even in pain, feeling compelled to assist the donkey, even, of our enemy.