Teaching Peace in Times of War

I must comment on the sacred cow known as national unity. I am not aware , in Jewish history or in any other history, of a worthwhile achievement of ethical, social, intellectual or religious character, which was attained thanks to national unity. Whatever is of worth was achieved through difficult struggles, sometimes even bloody civil wars. It is clear that values are not a basis for unity. It is possible to unite on the basis of interests, and, even then, only the most commonplace interests lay the grounds of unity. Struggle among people is a normal and healthy phenomenon. The very thing fools fear is what we desparately need, what in European political jargon is called Kulturkampf. This struggle is essential for intellectual and moral health. Value differences necessarily entail a struggle. (Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 1968)

This Friday I skipped the “Pro-Israel” demonstration in downtown Chicago and avoided the Arab anti-war demonstration that followed it. This is not “I don’t want to be a member of a club that would have someone like me for a member.” I don’t shy away from demonstrations and I certainly have a lot to say about this ongoing war in Gaza. I just think I have a better uses of my time teaching and writing than I do cheering or demonizing the other.
I had a clear measure of my success in this realm when one of my students came to tell me this morning that when a classmate of his bragged about how Israel was kicking Hamas’ butt in the war, he responded by saying that he can’t celebrate when hundreds of people are being killed.
What I liked best is that he didn’t say innocent civilians. He just said “people,” as if it doesn’t really matter what label they wear or what side of the border they live on. In my adult, academic lexicon, we might refer to that as not dehumanizing people. But this is one of the many skills that us adults have lost. We are so caught up in being right that we have built our right on others being wrong.
Being principle of a Religious School has some great benefits. The biggest is that I get to listen to my students and learn from them those things that we tend to lose as we age. Today was a particularly fruitful day for me. I learned a lot.
My friend, David Netzer, taught me a lesson which he does with Palestinian and Jewish kids in Northern Israel and I tried it out on my students. I gave them two pieces of paper; one from my recycling bin and the other a plan white sheet. I had the students make war with the recycled page and then draw peace on the white page. Without discussion, I then had them make peace with the tatters of the war page and war with their drawings of peace. Before the discussion started, I had them make peace with their drawings. Having two pages was my addition to David’s lesson. I wanted the students to compare war on a page they didn’t have an investment in with war on the page they drew of something very dear to them – their conception of peace. I also wanted to point out, by having them draw peace, that we all have very distinct conceptions of peace. Some students wrote the Hebrew word “Shalom” and many others wrote “Peace.” This was great because it gave me space to teach them the different linguistic conceptions of peace. Peace, from the Latin root Pax, refers to a cessation of violence, whereas Shalom comes from the Hebrew root Shalem which means whole or complete. I wanted to make the students proud of the fact that their language held peace as an ideal. I also wanted them to see that no two people have the same vision of peace.
When we spoke about the difference between making war with the recycled paper versus making war with the picture of peace, everyone said that making peace with the recycled paper was easier, but one of my truly great teachers said that she thought that making war with the peace image was a bit easier because she had already experienced making war with the recycled page.
I asked the students what could we deduce from our own and collective experience, and they were quick to respond that the more they were invested in the image, the more difficult it was to go to war. This sounded like the Thomas Friedman hypothesis that no two countries with McDonald’s will go to war with each other, but this turns out not to be true.
When the conversation went to solutions and alternatives to war, the students suggested getting familiar with the other party, but one of my more behaviorally challenging students jumped up and said something that sounded brilliant in the moment. “What if you become familiar and you discover that the other side is bad?” The student really touched on something important here. Is it enough to get to know eachother?
Organizations like Seeds of Peace try to prevent conflict by getting adversaries to live with each other in a summer camp, have dialog sessions and play together. With a non-critical eye, this sounds great. It’s like getting a lion and lamb to sleep next to each other. But what really is so great about it.
Through a source that should not have revealed itself to me, I learned of a breakdown in a moderated electronic discussion between Palestinians and Israelis who experienced something very similar to Seeds of Peace. When things collapsed and the invectives started flying, each side became increasingly convinced that “the other side is bad?”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of England, has a rather great take on this problem. According to Rabbi Sacks, “We will need to understand that just as the natural environment depends on biodiversity, so human environment depends on cultural diversity, because no one civilization encompasses all the spiritual, ethical and artistic expressions of mankind (Sacks 2002, P.62).”
In other words, we cannot continue to use tolerance as a mode of teaching peace, we must move to a model of pluralism wherein others can be different and “we” should not be so sure of ourselves as to say we have a monopoly on righteousness. By becoming familiar and tolerating difference, we will only accept it until we are not willing to accept it. By teaching pluralism, we are more likely to acknowledge our own limitations and act cautiously.
I concluded my lesson with the story of Ahknai’s oven from the Talmud. In this narrative, Rabbi Eliezer is very sure that he is right and all the rest of the academy is wrong. He tries proving it through sorcery but they remain unconvinced. Then he brings down the voice of God to announce his righteousness, which it does. But the rabbis respond by saying that “The Torah is not in heaven.” Meaning that humans have to be the judges of their own behavior. And that “We should act according to the majority,” which I explained was a misquote of the original citation from Genesis. The story concludes with God laughing in joy that his creatures have matured enough to take over ruling their destiny.
I told this story to get the kids thinking about the risks and responsibilities of having the judgment over right and wrong sit in human hands. I also wanted them to question the validity and wisdom of acting according to the majority.
In Fiddler on the Roof, there is a great line about a teacher who admires himself having a class of one. At the risk of being that teacher, I must announce my pride in the decision to end with the story of Ahknai’s oven because it went over so well. The students started discussing the fact that the Nazis came to power through democracy and that human beings are fraught with misjudgments. They discussed the difference between self-defense and suicide. It was amazing to see how successfully I had complicated something that the rest of the world is so eager to make simple. I am really proud of my work today and really proud of my students. Now let’s go out and stop this ugly war.