Pursue peace and justice

RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW

Two profound teachings of Jewish tradition should be guiding the actions of Jews today in regard to Iraq.

The first is tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, or "justice, justice, shall you pursue." The Rabbis asked, "Why 'justice' twice? They answered: Seek just ends by just means; seek justice for ourselves, justice for all others."

Certainly it is a "just goal" to make certain that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction.

But war against Iraq is not the just means of accomplishing this just end. Instead, it is likely to endanger many Iraqi, American, Israeli and other lives. It is also likely to endanger Israel and endanger the moderate Arab governments that have made peace with Israel.

A war will also take hundreds of billions of dollars from America's own people. An attack on Iraq will increase the unaccountable power of the oil companies and regimes that have provided money to both the Al-Qaida terrorists and the Bush administration.

What is the practical alternative to war?

American Jews could:

Support the Franco-German plan to intensify and prolong the U.N. inspection regime in Iraq.
Encourage a multilateral "Marshall Plan" for massive relief and rebuilding in Iraq before war, not waiting until afterward when there will be hundreds of thousands more dead.
Urge a worldwide treaty to eliminate weapons of mass destruction held by all nations.
Urge the United States to insist on all-Arab peace treaties with Israel, plus a peace settlement between a secure Israel and a viable Palestine.
Call a world conference of religious leaders to face and end the use of traditional texts and contemporary fears to justify violence against other religions.

The second crucial Jewish teaching for this hour comes from Psalm 34: Bakeysh shalom radfeyhu, or, seek peace and pursue it. Again the Rabbis asked, "Why both 'seek' and 'pursue'?" The answer: Most mitzvot can be done by sitting or standing or even walking. But for the sake of peace, we must not only seek it but chase after it.

Most of the official American Jewish leadership has sat, paralyzed, while peace runs away from us all. They should join those "peace-seekers" of the anti-war movement who take Jewish concerns seriously.

To do this, the "mainstream" Jewish community should learn to distinguish between anti-Israel and pro-Israel/pro-peace strands of the anti-war movement.

But this is only "seeking" peace. To "pursue" it as well, the larger liberal and progressive parts of the mainstream Jewish community should join such natural allies as the National Council of Churches, Sojourners magazine, the NAACP and the Sierra Club.

For Jews like the Reform movement and the JCRC/JCPA network to be absent from this table not only be- trays Jewish values and interests but also fails to represent Jewish concerns when some of the most important American public groups are creating a new center of moral and political energy.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, progressive Jewish political groups, Jewish feminists and neo-Hasidic teachers like Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel, Shlomo Carlebach and Zal-man Schachter-Shalomi seeded change that sprouted in the mainstream Jewish community during the 1990s.

In much the same way, anti-war Jews today are seeding change that mainstream Jewry needs to learn from.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center. He is the author of "Godwrestling - Round 2" and co-author of "A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven."

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