B-H
Once, after a business meeting I was asked this question by
a Muslim engineer. A well-educated and highly intelligent person, he
contributed his talents and knowledge to the common good of our society. His
question was, I guess, common among non-Jews who live with us in the same
neighborhoods and cities.
“Why do you Jews separate yourselves from the rest of us? Do
you think you are somehow better than we are?"
B-H I did have an answer for him, and that answer I would
like to share now with my readers.
Among the nations of the world, there are countless
narratives about the creation of the universe and the beginnings of man. According
to those accounts, creation of the world involved a whole assortment of
different elements ranging from fighting gods to gigantic eggs, turtles,
elephants and more. All of those fanciful stories describe different ways that
the world supposedly came to be, and how humanity was first recognized as a
people.
Lehavdil, the story recounted in the Torah, although for
some scoffers may look equally fantastic, is in many ways different from the
various other interpretations of creation. I will not dwell on the topic of
briyas haolam – Creation itself in this essay; I will focus rather on one
specific aspect of the Biblical account.
When you ask any Jewish kid attending a religious school the
question: Which precept of the Torah is the most important of them all? He will
probably answer, or even sing to you the song: "Umar rabbi Akiva, umar
rabbi Akiva… Rabbi Akiva said: 'You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.' This is a great principle of the Torah.”
Well, it is impossible to disagree with such a statement.
Love, or at least mutual respect, is the most highly admirable and desired
characteristic for any G-d-fearing person in the world. I can safely say it is
the most fundamental dogma in almost every modern religion. This so-called 'golden
rule' became the foundation of human civilization and the tenet of most
societies, not only in theory but surely also to a certain extent in practice.
These days, relatively fewer people are being killed by other human beings than
in times prior. (Although, on the other hand, today there are some men in
possession of weapons with the ability to annihilate masses of people, and
bring an unprecedented death toll upon the world.)
But…Talmud Yerushalmi, (Nedurim) brings a different opinion
about which precept in the Torah is most important: "Ben Azzai
disagreed. The verse 'This is the book of the descendants of Adam, whom G-d
made in His likeness' (Genesis 5:1). This principle is even
greater."
This is just a sampling of the sweet taste of our beloved
Talmud. Rabbi Akiva tells us to love our neighbor, our brother, our friend. But
is this dictum really an unshakeable statement? Indeed, someone might ask: Who
is this neighbor that we should honor; who is this brother that we should love?
According to some foreign beliefs, the answers to that question can vary. After
all, if we all evolved from different chimpanzees, hatched from different eggs,
or were born from different battling gods, then we don't really have that much
in common with one another. We're not exactly brothers, are we? We're more like
individual entities that happen to coexist on earth together.
But then came Rabbi Ben Azzai with his proposition.
All people are descendants of a single pair of parents. We
were not created from different fighting gods who were ripped to pieces, as the
Mesopotamian mythology describes. They were not built from different physical materials.
We didn’t evolve from different species of monkeys under disparate trees. We
are all children of one human, created by One G-d in His likeness.
How exceptional is this message!? How different from
anything conceived by the ancient world.
In today’s reality, everybody claims the truth of brotherly
love as his own. Christians, Muslims, and even members of religious movements
that didn’t sprout from the Jewish root are proud of spreading this memorandum.
However, it is the Jewish Torah which, as the first written sours in human
history, teaches equality for all human beings with the narrative of Hashem's
creation of Adam, the first father of humanity, from clay. The same clay was used in the birth of one
man, and all of mankind. It is Jewish Talmud which places this precept as the
most important of all verses in the Torah. And it is the Jewish nation to whom
this Torah was entrusted.
Yes, we hold ourselves separate from the other nations and
societies.
We work together with them. We live together with them. We
have great interest in politics and other events concerning the countries in
which we live. We are electing and sometimes we are elected. We pay what we owe
to support a common goal. We engage in various projects which bring progress
and prosperity to a broad society.
However, we have rules and regulation which do not allow us
to be completely integrated with other groups of people in certain areas of
life. And the reason for our separation is precisely this one: to upkeep this
ancient Jewish teaching, that all people of the earth are descendants of the same
parents. We are all brothers and sisters. Brotherhood is the reality for which
we all wait, and for which we have a prophetic promise that will someday come
true. It will come, however, only when we remember that this is what G-d
entrusted to us.
If we wouldn't keep ourselves separate? If we wouldn't
detach ourselves as a nation, from all the other societies, religions and
civilizations in the world, then our story of truth; our message of morality;
our belief in the oneness of creation would be lost. Without the Jews standing
as pillars of the past, the future would soon be forgotten.
Matys Weiser
