Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

December 8, 2002

by Harold M. Schulweis

In my earliest youth, I dreamed of Jewish heroes who could handle swords and missiles with skill. In Hebrew school, they mentioned personalities in ancient times like Samson, the Maccabees and Bar Kochba. But I never met a blood and flesh living Jewish general. Tonight I have shaken the hands of a Jewish general and for me this handshake is symbolic of the crucial turn in modern Jewish history. The presence of General Ehud Barak symbolizes the end of Jewish impotence and defenselessness. It marks the end of a passive people who had long become a shuttlecock of history, a feather weight object bandied about from country to country, an impotent victim of other people's wills and other nations' decisions. It signals Jewish autonomy, Jewish self-reliance, Jewish responsibility.

But this general will go down in history not only for his military strategy but for his heroic heart and which dared to risk for peace. The waging of peace requires the daunting courage to simultaneously look into the eyes of the enemy and to stretch out one's hand for the sake of peace. Strength and peace are not contradictory.

They say that not all clergy are cut out of the same cloth. May I suggest that not all generals are cut out of the same uniform. The fingers of this soldier, which know how to handle the triggers of guns, can also slide deftly across the keyboard of the piano to play classic musical compositions of Bach, Beethoven, Motzart, and sound the song of promise and the joy of peace. Strong and gentle hands. Of such a leader, the Psalmist wrote: "I have graven God on the palms of my hands."

The philosopher Hegel once wrote, "The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk" by which he meant that only by looking backward, only years later, will the world understand the diplomatic foresight and moral courage of Ehud Barak: a former Prime Minister, a General, a Jew informed by the wisdom of the sages, "Who is strong? He who can make out of an enemy, a friend." We are honored to be in the presence of a leader whose Hebrew surname, Barak, means "lightning" in Hebrew, swift as a warrior for peace, responsive as a pragmatic dreamer of shalom, deft as a musician of peace. May we live to see the lightning of peace and safety speedily and in our time. "For we know our destiny. We have not come into being to hate and to destroy. We have as a faith and people come into being to help and to heal to repair and to rescue, to bring peace to the families of the earth.

Israel, the United States and the community, "A three-fold cord will not quickly be broken." We are bound together and together we will prevail.

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