The Dangers of Extremism, in this moment and always: A Dvar Torah for Parshat BaMidbar 2021/5781
We find ourselves in the midst of a violent conflict that started in Jerusalem and has spread to all of Israel and to the West Bank and Gaza. As members of Jewish communities with family and friends and many deep connections, there is fear for Israel and her citizens; concern as people take cover in bomb shelters, hear rockets flying above them. We mourn the 7 people who have died so far in Israel, including a soldier and a six year old. 523 wounded (Note: This was as of Shabbat of 5/16/2021). As members of a human community- no matter what our political beliefs- we also knowledge the pain on the Palestinian side, the loss of victims caught in the crossfire. So far, a total of 122 people, including 31 children, have died since the escalation on Monday. At least 900 people are injured. We find ourselves like the Psalmists who cried out to God in agony and desperation: “When? When will the fighting stop and peace come?!”
SAJ is not a monolithic community when it comes to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have members all over the map of the varied Jewsh community responses to uptick in violence. Some of us are Israelis and experience this very differently than the rest. It is not abstract, it is our home and our family. Some of us feel Israel and one of, or the most essential and important parts of our Jewish identity. And some of us do not feel very connected and may feel confused and unsure what to make of these current events.
For some of us, our deep connection to Israel leads to us feeling great pride; and for some, a connection can also lead us to feeling ashamed or embarrassed by Israel’s actions. And with all this great diversity, which is a source of pride for us at SAJ, today, I hope we can find something we all agree on — something each of us from wherever we stand politically on the current or overall citation can speak out against b’kol echad- with one voice. And this is: the dangers of extremism. And our obligation as Jews to condemn extremism, including the extremism that comes from our own people and our community.
This topic is not a modern one or even a pre-modern one. It is something that has been on the minds of shapers of communities since the dawn of time. We find this concern in an interpretation of a verse of the torah in this week’s torah portion Bamidbar. In a midrash I learned from Rabbi David Kasher, from a teaching from his excellent blog “Parsha -Nut.”
As a reminder, BaMidbar begins with a census, a counting of all the Israelite men over the age of twenty. This census is not just a population study, it is a necessary step in battle preparation. While we rarely speak about this aspect, the early readers of the torah were aware of the war-like atmosphere present in the verses. In Bamidbar Chapter 2, after the initial counting tribe by tribe, the parsha gives direction to the tribal camps for where they will stand — their positions ready for battle as it were. In this section, the text says something unusual:
“The Israelites should camp, Ish Al Diglo — each with its own flag, as a sign of their father’s house; they should camp around the Tent of Meeting from afar” (Numbers 2:2).
Most of the time, we read over this passage without thought. But let’s pause: there is little mention of flags in the torah, and certainly not for tribes. When we picture the Israelites wandering in the desert, we likely have not thought about them marching in this way. What is the purpose of those flags? What is the function of having symbols of individual tribes within the collective?
A midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:7) picks up on the strangeness of this text and gives the flags mentioned in the text meaning and texture. They imagine each flag’s unique color and image that highlights an aspect of the identity of that tribe. “Judahs’ flag was sky-blue and had a picture of a lion” “Asher’s was pearl colored and had the picture of an olive tree” and so on. One can see that these flags would have been signs of great pride and individual identity, as Kasher illuminates.
But the midrash of the flags does not stop there. Once each flag is described, the midrash imagines a conversation between Moses and God. When Moses approaches God, he is filled with worry and trepidation that the people will become so identified with their tribe and their location that they will not be willing to serve the whole community.
The midrash states:
When the Holy Blessed one told Moses to make these flags as they desired, Moses began to feel distressed. He said, “Now there will be future conflicts between the tribes. If I say to the Tribe of Judah to camp on the east side, he will say he can only camp in the north, and the same with Reuben, and with Ephraim, and with every single tribe. What shall I do??
As Rabbi Kasher says, in this midrash “We see in Moses’ anxiety a keen intuition about the perils of nationalistic fervor. It is true, the more a group becomes attached to their tribal, ethnic identity, the more they tend to be insistent in their claim to a particular plot of land — and willing to fight for it. Moses is worried for good reason: flag-waving has often enough been a prelude to violence.”
God responds, of course, with assurance to Moses, saying that their sense of order and placement is based in their history, going back to the sons of Jacob around his deathbed. That sense of order is what gives them both pride and meaning and is not something to be feared.
The presence of the flags in Numbers 2 — and the expansion of this idea in the midrash- lay out the centuries-long tensions surrounding nationalism, tribalism. As Kasher speaks about: these flags are beautiful and a source of pride. They connect us to our history, they give us belonging. This is nationalism in its best manifestation: pride, hope, connection, rootedness. It can be generative of love and connection and goodness.
On the other hand, Moses has reason to be anxious and concerned about the emerging tribalism within his mist symbolized by these flags. Because when people are so proud of their tribe, so committed to their nation, it can also lead to great danger. It can lead to serving narrow interests over the whole. It can unfortunately and as we have seen throughout periods of history, it can lead to supremacy, extremism, and violence.
This kind of extremism is alive and well and taking many shapes and forms in the Middle East today.
There is the extremism and horrible violence of Hamas, a terrorist organization that throws rockets on Israel, ratcheting up the violence and putting innocent people in the crossfire. And we have to look at the extremism that is increasing daily by the right wing settlers in Israel. Nearly three weeks ago, before this conflict was likely on any of our minds, hundreds of ultra right wing Israelis stormed into East Jerusalem- an exclusively Palestinian neighborhood, screaming “Death to Arabs” and assualting Palestinians they came across along the way.
When the Al Aqsa Mosque was infiltrated and blazes of fire were coming from the scene, ultranationalist Jews standing at the Western Wall saw the fire and erupted into singing of joy and celebration. They sang a song from Meir Kanahe which spoke of sweet revenge. This is awful and terrifying.
And here’s the thing about extremism that we have learned directly from the last four years in America. Extremism will always exist in corners of society. But whether or not it bubbles to the forefront and gains power is something that is determined by those IN power. These ultranationalists have gained such a foothold, at least in part, due to the fact that those in power refuse to condemn or silence them; those who in fact give them a platform for their grievances.
In turn, extremism supports and emboldens each other’s positions and the voices in the center are stifled. And no progress can be made and the only answer is an endless series of conflicts and wars. And here’s another thing about extremism: when permitted, it spreads. This week, a mosque in Coney Island was defaced with the words “Death 2 Palestine.” Unfortunately, we know from this kind of extremism.
In this moment of crisit, let’s ask the questions Moshe asked: What if people become too attached to their flag? To their nation or tribe that they cannot see the dignity of another, the potential partnership of another? That they cannot find a way out and feel that violence justifies their position?
I share the powerful words of my teacher and colleague Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum: “Palestinians and Israeli Jews, Muslims, Christians. There is no choice but to reject the extremism, to reject the terror — the terror that comes from the government, from Hamas, from individuals, and say only together will we be able to move to a different way. There is no choice, really. We will only get there together, or we will all collapse in the bor/pit. There is history, there is so much pain we carry. We must learn from the pain and the history to carve a new way forward. We must listen to the stories of the hope and aspirations of building a state of Israel when no one in the world would take in the Jewish people as genocide consumed our people in flames, we must listen to the voices of history and of the future. And we sit in silence as our heart absorbs it all. We must listen to the sound of God demanding of us to act justly, with kindness and with love.”
We are a diverse community. But let’s find a way to cry out in unison a rejection of extremism -from without and within. Let’s envision a future that can hold the Divine vision of the midrash on this week’s parsha: that our flags will be symbols of history and community, rootedness and goodness.
