Chanukah Day Three - War

I joke with my son: "I'm a pacifist with violent tendencies..."

He laughs. I laugh. And then I sigh - because sadly, it's true.

I remember talking to a gaggle of pre-teens once, telling them about my heroes, Dr. King and Gandhi. They wanted to know why, and I told them about non-violence. I climbed up my metaphorical mountain and sat there, in some divinely serene lotus position, and the vantage point of my lovely, modern, suburban life, and waxed profound on the profound nature of peace. And one of the smart kids (being in 6th or 7th grade, all of whom have a natural tendency is to search out every chink in an adult's armor) raised his hand, and asked in a voice loaded with innocence, "But what about the Holocauset? Would you have fought then? If you could have killed Hitler, would you have?"

They all perked up then. They sensed blood. "I don't know," was my only answer. "I am really grateful I have never been in a position that I have to choose." Even as I said the words, I could feel my insides twist and churn. Would I? In those days, I was single and childless. Now - I have my beloved son. What if the threat were to him? Would I be able to maintain my position of non-violence if the threat were to my child rather than to me - or to my community?

Hannah had an answer. She lived with her seven sons somewhere in Judea. She supported Judah and the Maccabbees, and worked to defeat Antiochus and his army. When the soldiers came, as they did to every Jewish household, to force conversion upon then, Hannah was so steadfast in her beliefs that she was able to watch those soldiers throw each of her seven sons off the roof of their house, one by one, because she would not kneel and pray to a false god.

What a bizarre twist on the Hillel story - he was stopped by a Roman soldier who put a sword to his throat and said "Teach me the Torah while standing on one foot. If you can, I will convert. If you cannot, I will kill you here." Hillel, we are told, thoughtfully stands upon one foot and answers, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. The rest is commentary. Now go study.," And the general, so the story goes, did just that.

Hannah was told, "Bow down and pray or we will throw your sons to their deaths!" And she refused, because she was steeped in her faith. She held firm to her convictions and watched each of her sons die. Did they scream? Did she cry? Did the soldiers think twice, wondering how they could kill an innocent child? Did the soldiers question their inhumane orders? Did Hannah even once question a faith that could revere martyrdom over life? She was so sure that right was on her side; did she forget Moshe's cry: "Choose life!"

We were at war, fighting for our lives, our beliefs, our identity. And war - it changes you. It changes us all. We celebrate our victory over the Assyrians, and praise the bravery and might of Judah and Mattathias and the Maccabbean army.

And still, I am torn, between my love for peace, my belief in non-violence, my absolute conviction that violence only leads to violence, that it never solves anything. And I look around the world, at the wars and the conflicts that are killing us - all of us (because we are an "us," this world of ours, this human race of which we are a part) and I still cannot answer the question "Would you fight? Is there a Just War?" with more than an "I don't know, and thank God that I haven't had to make that choice."

It is Chanukah - a time to celebrate miracles and identity and victory. Perhaps - I hope, I pray - the lesson of this war, of any war, is not to help us answer the question "Would you fight?" but to spur us to redouble our efforts to create a world in which there is no war. Work for peace, for justice. Fight poverty and ignorance and need, not one another.

I am naive, I know. But that is my hope, even so, and I will cling to it, hold fast to it, work tirelessly for it.

Chanukah: Third Night - WAR

I joke with my son: "I''m a pacifist with violent tendencies..."

He laughs. I laugh. And then I sigh - because sadly, it's true.

I remember talking to a gaggle of pre-teens once, telling them about my heroes, Dr. King and Gandhi. They wanted to know why, and I told them about non-violence. I climbed up my metaphorical mountain and sat there, in some divinely serene lotus position, and the vantage point of my lovely, modern, suburban life, and waxed profound on the profound nature of peace. And one of the smart kids (being in 6th or 7th grade, all of whom have a natural tendency is to search out every chink in an adult's armor) raised his hand, and asked in a voice loaded with innocence, "But what about the Holocauset? Would you have fought then? If you could have killed Hitler, would you have?"

They all perked up then. They sensed blood. "I don't know," was my only answer. "I am really grateful I have never been in a position that I have to choose." Even as I said the words, I could feel my insides twist and churn. Would I? In those days, I was single and childless. Now - I have my beloved son. What if the threat were to him? Would I be able to maintain my position of non-violence if the threat were to my child rather than to me - or to my community?

Hannah had an answer. She lived with her seven sons somewhere in Judea. She supported Judah and the Maccabbees, and worked to defeat Antiochus and his army. When the soldiers came, as they did to every Jewish household, to force conversion upon then, Hannah was so steadfast in her beliefs that she was able to watch those soldiers throw each of her seven sons off the roof of their house, one by one, because she would not kneel and pray to a false god.

What a bizarre twist on the Hillel story - he was stopped by a Roman soldier who put a sword to his throat and said "Teach me the Torah while standing on one foot. If you can, I will convert. If you cannot, I will kill you here." Hillel, we are told, thoughtfully stands upon one foot and answers, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. The rest is commentary. Now go study.," And the general, so the story goes, did just that.

Hannah was told, "Bow down and pray or we will throw your sons to their deaths!" And she refused, because she was steeped in her faith. She held firm to her convictions and watched each of her sons die. Did they scream? Did she cry? Did the soldiers think twice, wondering how they could kill an innocent child? Did the soldiers question their inhumane orders? Did Hannah even once question a faith that could revere martyrdom over life? She was so sure that right was on her side; did she forget Moshe's cry: "Choose life!"

We were at war, fighting for our lives, our beliefs, our identity. And war - it changes you. It changes us all. We celebrate our victory over the Assyrians, and praise the bravery and might of Judah and Mattathias and the Maccabbean army.

And still, I am torn, between my love for peace, my belief in non-violence, my absolute conviction that violence only leads to violence, that it never solves anything. And I look around the world, at the wars and the conflicts that are killing us - all of us (because we are an "us," this world of ours, this human race of which we are a part) and I still cannot answer the question "Would you fight? Is there a Just War?" with more than an "I don't know, and thank God that I haven't had to make that choice."

It is Chanukah - a time to celebrate miracles and identity and victory. Perhaps - I hope, I pray - the lesson of this war, of any war, is not to help us answer the question "Would you fight?" but to spur us to redouble our efforts to create a world in which there is no war. Work for peace, for justice. Fight poverty and ignorance and need, not one another.

I am naive, I know. But that is my hope, even so, and I will cling to it, hold fast to it, work tirelessly for it.

Earlier this year, war broke out in Gaza. It was horrific. People died. People lived in fear and anger and despair. I wrote this poem in response to the news, to express my own anguish over war and how it changes us all. I include it here, on this third night of Chanukah, because war is war, and I am a lover of peace...

And I am a Lover of Peace

War is not holy.
It is made of blood
and fed by fear,
Ravenous and insatiable,
It devours the world
In pieces.

It touches
Everything,
Ten thousand miles
Or five hundred feet
Or ten inches away.
It sends out
delicate, grasping, choking tendrils
to curl and
coil
over the rubble
of bombed-out buildings,
and the razor sharp ruin
of hearts and
Lives.

Blood is blood.
It seeps
red and
turns brown
and black
as it dries
in the dirt.
Yours.
Mine.
Theirs.
Blood is blood.

And the thing about war--
The madness
of its twisted,
tainted
suffocating existence,
Is that it changes
everything
it touches,
And it touches
everything,
So that a lover of peace,
who listens for God in the
stillness,
and finds God in small moments
of holy devotion,
And carries the music of God
Out into the world--

In war,
A lover of peace,
in a moment of quiet
Stillness,
Where once there was
God
to fill that holy space
of grace and glory,
And now there is only
Silence,
a lover of peace
Will learn to say:
Blood is blood,
But better their blood than 
Ours.
And I am a lover of
Peace.

As if that matters.

War touches
everything,
And changes
everything,
And kills,
And shatters,
And destroys
What it touches.
And war is not holy
And war makes blood flow.

And blood is blood.
That matters --
Blood is blood,
And I am a lover of
Peace.

A Prayer for Hope

I sent my hope out into
the Universe.
Whispered and weightless,
I waited.

I waited to be struck whole,
made happy,
healed
By you;
saved
by You.
I waited for peace
to come.

But Hope is an action
And it doesn't wait,
or come when
called.
And you--
and You--
will never save me
or bring me
hope,
lying calm and clean
on platters of silver.

I hope with my feet,
not my head
or my heart,
which lies broken
and bruised
near the graves of
the fallen,
who lie silent
and still
near the fields
where you
and You
once tried to be holy,
once tried to hope,
once waited for peace to
come.

But hope is an action,
and peace is a
verb--
to lift me,
to fill me,
allow me to
soar.
When I hope with my feet
I am saved.
I am healed.
I am made holy
once more.

Stacey Zisook Robinson
(c) 2014

My Heart is in the East

My heart is in the East.

For the past three weeks, I, like so many of my friends, have been glued to some kind of screen, watching events in Israel and Gaza shift and grow, from conflict to conflagration. I scroll through the news feeds, click on the links, stare in horror and in hope - as if those pixelated words and images were water in the desert and I were dying of thirst.

I have a friend who flew back from Israel yesterday. Today he went to a rally in New York, and stood in front of the United Nations, to stand for Israel, to mourn for Gaza, to demand - to pray for - no more dead. No more innocent blood. His sign was in English, Hebrew. Oh yeah - and Arabic.

His sign was ripped and torn by another who'd come to stand with Israel. Apparently, there's standing, and then there's standing. Hatred and ignorance have no borders. War is infectious.

My heart is in the East. I breathed in its dust, and the spice of its air. I walked through its tangled, crowded roads. I prayed at the Kotel. I stood in the seas - three of them in all. I tasted olive oil from fields as old as God, and stood silently among the birdsong of the Golan. I walked that antique, sacred land, felt the weight of centuries and the echoes of people searching for God and home.

My heart is in the East. More and more, though, I cannot shake the feeling that "East" is everywhere - or it can be nowhere at all.

This morning, I drove my son to a school on the west side of Chicago. He's in Debate Camp. It's a prestigious program, a training ground that will help to prepare him for the rigors of High School debate competition. The school is less than ten miles from my little suburban home. Ten miles. Ten. From Skokie to the West Side of the city - and there is a war going on there.

I want to back away from that statement, soften it, make it undramatic. It's not the same - not even close - to the battlegrounds of Gaza, or Syria, or Nigeria, Or the Ukraine. Pick a conflict - as if death and destruction can be contained like that: a mere disagreement, with the combatants a couple of schoolboys with raised fists and raised voices, to be settled with a sternly worded letter.

Less than ten miles from my home, there is a world of violence and hatred, of bombed-out, boarded-up buildings and rubble-strewn streets. People stared as we drove by, eyes hard and flat. Worse, were the people whose eyes were as dead as their hope. There is poverty and hunger and despair, and it's killing neighborhoods and people in ones and twos and tens, every day. We do not have to go to Gaza to see people who walk through a war zone every day of their lives, trying just to live their lives, raise their kids, and they are met with blockades that we ourselves erect at almost every turn.

There have been almost two hundred fatalities due to gun violence in Chicago  this year alone, concentrated disproportionately on the west and south sides: almost one for every day of the year so far. Now multiply these numbers by Detroit, or the Ninth Ward, the South Bronx and Watts. Any city. Every city. War is infectious.

The death toll is rising so rapidly that we are almost numb to it. I call it the race to the new normal. How quickly we become inured to what weeks - days - only moments before would have be untenable. We are genuinely saddened by it. We talk about it over coffee, on Facebook, in the board room and the living room; we shrug at the inevitability of this new reality.

"What can we do?" we sigh. The problem is too big, too endemic and ingrained. It's the government. It's the people. It's the politicians. It's the Left. The Right. The ignorant, the elite. It's too big, been with us too long. It's just the way it is. But there's a sale on and there's little league and bills to pay and work to be done.

Don't get me wrong - there is poverty and violence and hatred in the suburbs. We do not live in a magic land, protected by a magic barrier. And there are spots of light and grace, even on the West Side, people and communities committed to making a difference, building bridges and working for peace. For justice.

Those aren't just tired old words that people used to use way back when. They are real and vibrant and within reach. They are not naive, nor are they passe, these ideals, and with them love, and hope, and truth. There is something bold about them, and magnificent. They are not simple or easy. They will not just come because we want them or wish for them. We have to sweat for them, work harder than we ever have. If we don't we will bleed for them. We will die for them. Because without them, we have nothing but bombed-out buildings and rubble-strewn streets.

There once was a man, who looked out his window one day, who saw despair and hopelessness and hunger and want and desperate need. He saw inhumanity and cruelty and hatred honored and raised up as virtues throughout the land. He wept then, and cried out to God: "Creator of all, of light and hope and mercy - how can You allow all of these horrible things to be, to flourish?" And he wept more. Suddenly, in the space between breaths, from one heartbeat to the next, he heard God say, "How can you?"

Today, I stand with humanity. I mourn for the senseless death of innocents. Blood is blood. No more dead.

My heart is in the East, and the East is all around me, echoing with centuries and God.

05 Tishrei 5774: Peace

I found this quote yesterday while wandering online, wondering whatinhell I was going to say about today's prompt.

"Worrying doesn't take away tomorrow's trouble; it takes away today's peace."

Score one for a God moment-- those little bits of happenstance that just seem to fit perfectly when you least expect it. hey are unexplainable, and certainly, more rationale folks would just chalk it up to coincidence-- and in my more guarded, rational and cynical moments, I do just that. every once in a while, the mystic in me peeks out from behind the curtains,  thumb to nose and tongue out, laughing. What's a girl to do?

Oh yeah: not worry about it.

It has taken me decades to be okay with inconsistency. Add not knowing to that short list, along with inexplicable God moments and a Chicagoan's penchant for the Cubs over the White Sox. I may not understand it, but it no longer keeps me up at night, worrying it over like a dog with a bone, chewing and tugging and growling, getting all worked up about nothing. Or everything. Or something-- some vague, guessed at thing that may or may not be relevant, or fixable, or preventable, or important. Or anything.

There was a time I would grab onto any of that-- calamity real or imagined, rumor innuendo-- grab it and worry it and hold on for dear life. I would have entire conversations in my head; hell, I would have multi-user conference calls in there, absolutely independent of any other participants. I knew what you would say to whatever I would say, and the skip six steps ahead, and then six more.

I had all the answers: mine, yours, right, imagined, made up. All of them. What I did not have was any sense of serenity or peace.

I was jumpy and jittery, a bundle of not-so-free floating anxiety. Fix, manage and control-- these were my watchwords. Thing is, I would try to do all of that with ideas and situations and things that couldn't be fixed or managed or controlled. At least, not by me.

I've said it before, and it bears saying again: pray to God but row towards shore. Take action. Plan and prepare and put things in motion. Then get out of the way. Breathe. Pause. Think. Ask. Consider. These are generally the next right things to do.

And when I do this, when I get out of my own way, I  am  blessed with peace. Not that everything works the way I want it to. Not that the results are always happy and good. That's a fairy tale world that I no longer try to live in (mostly).

No, the peace and calm and quiet is what gets me through all the other stuff. I don't need to live from crisis to crisis. I can live passionately, fully, joyously, with peace at my core. I can carry that peace with me as I go out to tackle the real work of creating peace in the world and fixing the broken places.