Spirituality?

This morning I read Rabbi Zach's latest weekly message, Disparities In A Frozen Heart. In it he reveals, unwittingly, that he's torturing himself with daily doses of video warfare, seeing again and again the burned, crushed, dead bodies of children in the arms of their fathers. He invites those who think this course of action is the right one to expose themselves also to these video horrors, so that at the least, they can see the human cost of their position.

I was deeply moved, touched, by the pain he is inflicting upon himself every day, in order, I suppose, to insure that he not lose his compassion, his empathy, his sensitivity? He is among the apparently somewhat unpopular voices, among certain Jewish leaders, in calling for a cease fire. A voice in the wilderness, lost largely in the cacophony of shouts of Antisemitism. Somehow a cease fire equates with hatred of Jews. "I'm a second generation Holocaust survivor, people hate Jews, what's happening needs to happen."

Survival. That's really the bottom line, isn't it? Never Again! People who have spent their entire lives in so-called spiritual pursuit, still seem to have no problem rationalizing the horrors of war when it comes to survival. But aren't the deepest spiritual truths and values beyond mere survival? We're all going to die, after all. Is it wisdom to perpetrate the horrors of war in order to extend these inherently fragile, tenuous lives a few days longer? What's been the use of those years of "spiritual" practice and longing?

Well, I'll be joining Rabbi Zach and those other wilderness voices, a wilderness inherent to all genuine spiritual life. Never has genuine spirituality been a domain of the many. Always it has been the province of the (relatively) very few, the "wilderness" dwellers, the outcasts. Nothing new under the sun, even in these very "special" times.

I was touched deeply enough so that I wrote a response to Rabbi Zach, claiming my elderhood, my professional bona fides, my realistic idealism as a child of the anti-war Sixties, my mysticism, etc. and suggesting to him that the harm he is doing to himself on a daily basis will never be productive, but will only continue to damage himself; encouraging him to be more confident in his own compassion and love and empathy and caring, because it is who he is. 

I compared him to the likes of Dr. King, Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh and The Dalai Lama, all voices for non-violence and compassion. I asked him to please, afford himself a cease fire.

Peace within, peace without. Let those who have ears, hear.

Amen.