I had a business appointment in the Crow Indian territory,
but there were a few hours to spare before that meeting and nowhere to go for
miles in any direction.
There was nowhere to visit other than the Little Big Horn Battlefield
National Monument.
I usually have the inclination to see a variety of
interesting places; not only those of exceptional natural beauty, but also those
of historical significance. But it's very rare for me to stop at any sites that
commemorate military campaigns. Why? You will understand by the time you reach
the end of this essay.
Still, with time to kill I stopped at the Little Big Horn visitor
center to learn more about the place. In the past I had driven past the Monument
with my family, and so the basic facts were known to me. But this was the first
time I actually entered this former western frontier battlefield.
Gentle hills were covered with prairie-type vegetation, visible
from three sides, all the way to the horizon. On the west, the Big Horn
Mountains were still covered with snow, as they are until early summer in this
part of the mountain chain.
Paved paths led me to the spot where a major clash took
place; where many of the bodies of killed American soldiers were found. Hills
were spotted with white marble tablets that looked like small tombstones. From
the information display I learned that the stones indicate the places where the
slaughtered bodies had lain, stripped of all valuables, until an additional
regiment of the army arrived. The deceased bodies were then collected and laid
to rest in a nearby cemetery, which was also used later for the slain soldiers
of other U.S wars.
Walking the paths between the white marble stones, from time
to time I stopped to read the names and ages of the soldiers. What struck me
was not the young age of many of the soldiers, for that is precisely the age
group that is used on battlefields all over the world. What did surprise me to
learn, was that more than 40% of the slaughtered soldiers were not born
Americans.
That was not, however, the case of their commander Colonel George
Armstrong Custer. Custer was of German and perhaps Irish ancestry, but he was
born in Ohio. Colonel Custer was a hero of the Civil War, known to many as the ‘Boy
General’ who earned his celebrity status in his early twenties.
Dressed in a custom-ordered, distinguished uniform, he often
engaged in the most dangerous acts, thus gaining the respect of other soldiers
through his fearless and aggressive pursuit of enemies. He killed those enemies
with visible satisfaction.
In fact, this sadist actually wrote in a letter that while
he understands that Civil War doesn’t serve his country well, he wishes it would
never end.
Soon after the Civil War did end, the American army
struggled with a surplus in the military industry, as many governments do after
war. One of the enemies which the army was next deployed to fight emerged in
the western territories of what is today the state of Utah: the Mormon Church. But
that was not where Colonel Custer was sent.
After pursuing different lines of fame and business,
including an attempt to fight for the army of Benito Juarez in Mexico, Custer
found new fields upon which to discharge his natural drives – the American
Indian Wars.
As the American frontier was moving westward, the interests
of indigenous populations were challenged. Sioux or Lakota, Arapaho and
Cheyenne Native American nations were on the frontlines of American progress.
As noted shortly in Wikipedia:
“By the time of Custer's
expedition to the Black Hills in 1874, the level of conflict and tension
between the U.S. and many of the Plains Indians tribes
(including the Lakota, Sioux and Cheyenne) had become
exceedingly high. Americans continually broke treaty agreements and advanced
further westward, resulting in violence and acts of depredation by both sides.
To take possession of the Black Hills (and
thus the gold deposits), and to stop Indian attacks, the U.S.
The problem was
that Cheyenne Indians never signed any treaty with the American Government, as
was also the case with many other tribes.
To get a better
picture of the situation, imagine that someone breaks into your home and takes
room after room into his possession. As proof of his right to do so, he
presents you with some document which he calls, for example, ‘Manifest Destiny.’
He genuinely believes that he has the G-d-given right to possess and manage
your house.
After pushing
you down to the basement, he comes to you with a ‘peace’ treaty that says you
can now occupy a few rooms in the basement, as long as you comply with certain
rules.
Of course, you
don’t know what he is talking about because you still remember the comfort and coziness
of the couch in your living room. So you refuse to sign any treaty. Rightly,
you feel that this may not be the end of this intruder's demands.
And that's
exactly what happens next.
The invader
discovers that the main water valve is in the room where you put your air
mattress, as you are trying to somehow organize your life. Now he wants you out
of the room because his strategic interests must be protected.
In his
generosity he shows you the closet under the steps, which he is ready to grant
you under the terms of a new ‘peace’ treaty.
That is precisely
what happened with Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne and many other American nations.
They refused to
go to the reservations that were designated for them.
If you would
see the Black Hills in South Dakota and what kind of wasteland surrounds this most
beautiful region of the country, you would understand why they did not want to
leave the area.
Whatever was
not wasteland was prairie, where bison once roamed. But the white man almost
annihilated the bison. For Plain Indians, countless herds of Bison were a source
of food, clothing, building materials and tools. They were an essential element
to their survival. That element was destroyed precisely in order to cut them
off from the source of their livelihood. Bands of settlers rode their horses,
killing as many bison as possible without taking anything from the animals.
Their goal was solely to deprive the Indians. And it all happened with the
quiet acceptance of the government.
In the spring of 1876, the American Government deployed
three different units of its army to bring the Indians to ‘order’ by enclosing
them in reservations.
One of the groups was led by the commander of the 7th
cavalry regiment – Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
Custer was informed about an Indian village in nearby Little
Big Horn River in today’s Montana. He decided to engage them in battle, even
though the village was estimated as being populated by as many as eight
thousand people, at least 1500 to 1800 of them warriors protecting their
families and possessions.
Custer didn’t have that number of people with him. If he
would have waited for two more American army units, their numbers and their technological
superiority in the profession of killing people would have given him certain victory.
But this war celebrity had already been lauded in the books and the national
press, and he didn’t want to share the fame with others. He decided to engage
in battle with the Indians on his own. After all, his middle name was
Armstrong… and that’s probably how he saw himself.
He divided his unit into three smaller groups, but I will
not share any further details of what happened after that, because describing the
loss of human life causes me pain.
Between June 25 and 26 of 1876, most of his soldiers were
killed - including their commander.
It was only a temporarily successful defense for the 8000
souls who tried to avoid an encounter with people who invaded their land from
beyond the great sea – the Atlantic Ocean. The other two units of the American
army arrived shortly thereafter and defeated the Indian tribes, forcing them
into reservations upon which they are still living today.
If you would take a road trip through the states where the
story described above happened - Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming - you would probably
be as surprised as many of the east coasters are who visit the western States.
You would find that this land is empty; there are almost no people living there,
and no major industry. Miles of land are not even cultivated. Here and there,
some cows wander on the horizon, but otherwise the land is almost barren.
What was the urgency, you may ask, to take this land almost
150 years ago, if it is still uninhabited and almost unused? If the indigenous
population was suppressed and their numbers weren't increasing; if the
Europeans weren't arriving in big numbers; what was the land grab for? Coal in
Wyoming was not yet discovered, neither was oil in Dakota and Montana. Why did
white American men consider it so imperative to enclose the nomadic tribes in
the reservations? Was it only about the gold in the Black Hills?
Walking among those white marble matzevos I noticed commemoration
stones that were the same size but a different color. These were sparsely dotting
the prairie. I went closer to them to read their inscriptions.
Those stone were not as weathered as the white ones,
indicating that those brown stones were put on the battlefield much later than
the white ones. The names inscribed on the newer stones were those of the
Lakota, Arapaho and Cheyenne warriors.
At some moment it was recognized by descendents of European
immigrants that not only were those Indians defending their families and their
livelihoods, but they displayed military valor and bravery.
It struck me because this mindset is exactly the same
approach of the culture in which I was raised: civilians can be mass murdered,
but soldiers are interned in POW camps and officers are treated with honors,
including allowing them to carry unloaded weapons. Military might is admired.
It struck me also because I clearly remember the words of my
beloved rabbi, Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch:
“Philistia feared, Edom remained stunned, Moab trembled,
Canaan was quite dumbfounded; it was only Amalek, completely unprovoked, who
hurried out of his way to gain renown and take up arms against the Force which
had laid even a Pharaoh low. He alone lo ire Elokim, did not fear
G-d.
He alone was the heir of that spirit which chose the sword
as his lot, who sought to realize the seeking renown in laurels of blood and
the naseh luni sheim with which old Nimrod started the history of
the world to the destruction of the happiness of nations and men. This seeking
renown by the force of arms is the first and last enemy of the happiness of
mankind and of the Kingdom of G-d on earth.
The policy of the Pharaohs — using force ruthlessly to
further their own interests, certainly had an interest in keeping up slavery,
but that policy can even be a friend of freedom, when freedom serves its
interests. But Amalek's renown-seeking sword knows no rest so long as one
single pulse beats in freedom, and pays no homage to it. So long as any modest,
quiet happiness exists which does not tremble before its might.
Before similar forces, armed to the teeth like himself,
Amalek does not yield, but rather sees in such measures a sign of recognition
and fear of his sword. He wages war against them, of course, but honors
opponents who acknowledge him and have similar principles to his own.
But in Israel
he sees an object of mortal hate and complete disdain, where one dares to think
the sword is dispensable, where one dares to trust in spiritual moral powers,
powers of which the sword has no idea, and which are beyond its reach.
In the representative of the idea of the greatness which Man
can attain by Peace, Amalek sees the utter scorn of all his principles, sees in
it his one real enemy, and senses somehow his own ultimate collapse.”
When I was reading those words of Rav Hirsch for the first
time, I have to admit, tears rolled down my cheeks. I cried with the tears of exaltation,
for one more time I saw that the idea of aversion to violence is not only my
own conviction.
Nonviolence is not only hinted at in some cryptic message of
our father Yitzchok that “Hakol kol Yaakov veyidaim yadey Eisav” – The voice is
the voice of Yaakov but the hands are the hands of Eisav. Our sages of blessed
memory explained those words multiple times as an obligation imposed on Yaakov
and his descendent not to engage in violence and even avoid situations where self-defense
must be used.
There are other places in Chumash where we find similar
messages. For example, the words of Chazal on the ‘blessing’ of Yaakov to his
sons Shimon veLayvi, in which weapons are called ‘stolen devices’. Stolen because
they belong to uncle Eisav and his descendants, but not to bnei Yaakov, not to
Yisrael.
I exulted to read the words of Rav Hirsch. He was one of the
most prominent leaders of our people, having a unique clarity and understanding
of the Jewish mission and role in history. And he explained this fundamental
truth in a most lucid manner.
Rav Hirsch didn’t stop only by explaining the historical and
political reality which started with Nimrod, continued with Eisav and then with
his archetype grandson Amulek. Rav Hirsch spoke about the ultimate collapse of
the ‘philosophy of conquer and control’.
“Es Zaicher Amulek - It is not Amalek who is
so pernicious for the moral future of mankind, but Zaicher Amulek,
the glorifying of the memory of Amalek which is the danger. As long as the
annals of humanity cover the memory of the heroes of the sword with glory, as
long as those that throttle and murder the happiness of mankind are not buried
in oblivion, so long will each successive generation look up in worship to
these "great ones" of violence and force, and their memory will
awaken the desire to emulate these heroes, and acquire equal glory by equal
violence and force. Only when the divine laws of morals have become the sole
criterion as to the worth of the greatest and smallest of men, and no longer in
inverse proportion but in direct proportion to greatness and power do the
demands of morality grow, and the greater and more powerful a man is, the less
any lapse in the laws of morality is excused, then and then only will the reign
of Amalek cease forever in the world. That this is the final goal of G-d's
management and direction of the history of the world is expressed here after
the first weakening of Amalek, "I will utterly obliterate the keeping up
the remembrance of Amalek from as far as the heavens reach."
This is not some peripheral topic in our Torah, as there are
no peripherals in the Torah. There are only essentials.
But here more than anywhere else Rav Hirsch explains the very essence of our existence,
which has multiple connections to our struggle with the Spirit of Eisav, a.k.a.
the Satan, Snake, Angle of Death or Other side.
Here is revealed the hidden message;
the core reason of our existence as Jews and as mankind at the same time, where
the goal of history is the recognition of diversity in order to unite in
complete Oneness. The first step to achieving recognition of the ‘other’ is
simply by not killing him or violating him in any other manner. For in the face
and existence of the ‘other’, we need to recognize the ‘face’ and existence of
the One.
But to get to this stage we must first stop killing each
other, justify killing, honor murderers, or remember heroes of violence. We
should be ashamed to talk about warriors, soldiers, generals and politicians
who caused loss of human life instead of admiring them or giving them even
quiet recognition. Even to those who fought so called ‘just wars,’ where some
bloody regimes were defeated and further butchery was stopped. For as long as
it happened through the means of violence, not much was really achieved in the
general struggle of history.
When, almost thirty years ago, I stood in the front of a
military commission in the office of higher command, this is almost precisely
what I told them.
At the time, refuseniks like me were normally given a
sentence of two years' incarceration. And after hours of scaring me with visions
of being harmed and beaten in jail, they laughed and ridiculed my naivety in
this tough and cruel world.
They thought: Here he is – a big guy, six and a half feet
tall, who thinks that using physical force is in reality a defeat and a failure.
A giant of a man who says that in case of attack he would rather try to escape
and avoid harming his assailant, than engage in struggle and knock him down to
the ground.
My statements were radical for them to the extent that they
couldn’t stop laughing for a long time. "A big guy big like you…you can
probably kill with the strike of your bare hand… and you would rather run away,
you idiot?!"
I answered, "Perhaps I can. But I don't want to. And I
don’t want to be part of your institution either."
Almost thirty years have passed, and my policy hasn't changed
Burich Hashem.
Of course there are Hilchos Roidef – Torah Laws regarding self-defense
and the defense of another person in situations of direct endangerment to life,
health or even the possessions of a Jew. But that has nothing to do with the
cult of Amulek and his sword.
I know that even among our own people, there are those who will
label me with the words of Lenin – “pacifists are useful idiots.”
Be'ezras Hashem I would rather remain an ‘idiot’ and pray
for them to distance themselves from the dogma of Lenin.
This is what I realized once again on the battlefield of
Little Big Horn.
