Question
The biggest problem that I have is that Jews act more like enemies than the enemy. Sometimes it creates a great deal of anger inside of me. Didn’t they learn anything from the past? Why are they so deaf and blind, don’t they see what harm they are for themselves and their fellow Jews? Why do they have such a problem to believe that Israel belongs to the Jewish people and not to the Arabs?
Answer
One must be careful not to malign the Jewish People. Maimonides quotes rabbinical sources that tell us that even Moshe, Eliahu and Yeshayahu were rebuked for disparaging Israel. Are the Jews “they” and not “we”? The greatest miracle of our time is the creation of the State of Israel and the ingathering of the exiles. But the Jewish People have suffered at the hands of ruthless enemies over the millennia and our exile has distanced us from issues of state. Part of Jewish rebirth is learning to overcome the psychological damage inflicted on us. Anger should be directed at those who are killing innocents and not at the victims of two thousand years of persecution as we rediscover the meaning of our nationhood.
