| |
|
|
Fire has consumed the pastures in the wilderness, and flame has devoured all the trees...
The waterholes are dried up, and the granaries are desolate,
Barns are in ruins, and the seeds have shrivelled under their clods;
The cattle are bewildered, and the sheep are dazed...
These words of the Prophet Joel were quoted by Rabbi Bob Samuel, the Emeritus Rabbi of the Leo Baeck Centre in Haifa when writing about the forest fires that ravaged the Carmel Forest last week. The fire claimed 42 lives, burned over 12,000 acres of forest, over 4 million trees, and displaced over 17,000 people from 14 different locations. Our hearts go out to all those in mourning and who have lost their homes. This week I issued a plea for all our Congregants to make donations through the Friends of Progressive Judaism in Israel and Europe (www.fpjie.org.uk) to support the work of the Leo Baeck Centre and the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.
They have been working tirelessly to care for the displaced, the fire fighters and other support workers and need further support for the work of renewal for the people, the land and property that have been damaged. We can be justifiably proud of our Israeli partners and owe them our support.
As ever in the analysis, there are good news stories and there is bad. As well as expected assistance from friends around the world, there were those who put aside differences. The Palestinian Authority sent trucks to put out the flames alongside Israelis with further support from Jordan and Egypt; the Greeks and Turks flew their planes in formation with one another to stop the fire.
Yet there were those who used the opportunity to emphasize divisions. According to Israeli news website Ynet, “Many Arab media outlets have been taking advantage of Israel's fire disaster to disparage the Jewish state and rejoice over its misfortune." Other Arab nations condemned Egypt and Jordan for helping Israel. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh stated: "These are plagues from God. Allah is punishing [the Israelis] from a place they did not expect." This language is echoed by Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the spiritual leader of the politically powerful Shas religious party in Israel, who proclaimed that "the fire only exists in a place where the Sabbath is desecrated." I guess he perceives his party’s control of the Interior Ministry that has overseen national resources siphoned into yeshivot rather than updating the 50 year old fire engines staffed by a meager 1500 fire fighters, as work to support God’s retribution.
Then I thank the God that I pray to that Israel upholds processes to maintain the democratic rights of its citizens. One might be free to raise viewpoints but there is a difference when public office is abused. At times it is the legal process that must do its job. The time came when dozens of Israel's municipal chief rabbis follow the chief rabbi of Safed in religious rulings urging Jews to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews. “Racism originated in the Torah," said Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, who heads the Ashdod Yeshiva and was a signatory. "The land of Israel is designated for the people of Israel. This is what the Holy One Blessed Be He intended and that is what the [sage] Rashi interpreted." In an official response, the attorney general’s office stated, "The attorney general thinks that it appears that the statements attributed to the rabbis are problematic in several aspects… and are inappropriate for public officials."
One can only hope and pray that another process, the democratic process, frees Israel from the shackles of religious political parties. The leading rabbi of Israel's non-Hasidic Orthodox sector, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, denounced the religious ruling of the chief rabbis: "I've said for some time that there are rabbis who must have their pens taken away from them…It's interesting that these same Zionist rabbis support symbolically selling their land to gentiles during the shmita year," he added referring to the seven-year cycle when agricultural fields in Israel must lie fallow.
A carelessly thrown nargila coal can cause Israel’s worst and deadliest forest fire when placed on parched ground. Inflammatory words and rulings from religious leaders can have the same affect in the tinderbox of middle-eastern societies.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sought to harness the cooperation by establishing a regional fire fighting force to provide assistance where needed. “The assistance that was given to Israel last week should serve as a model for additional cooperation in our region. By pooling our resources and knowledge of our countries we can better prepare and respond to natural disasters that hit our region.” Let us be optimistic that they succeed in putting out the next fire in whatever country is affected in the region and may the legal and democratic processes in Israel, extinguish flames of hate before they catch hold.
It is in this vein of optimism that Rabbi Bob Samuel concluded his comments on the fires with further words from the prophet Joel,
You shall have new grain, new wine and new oil,
And you shall have them in abundance...
Your elders shall dream dreams,
And your youth shall have vision...
May those who plan evil have no hope of success but may the dreams and visions of unity and cooperation herald a time when evil shall vanish from the earth.
Amen. |
|
