What the West Doesn’t Get

By Sherwin Pomerantz

My mentor when I lived in Chicago, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Schafler of blessed memory, gave a lecture 30 years ago wherein he made a single point very relative to the situation in which the world finds itself today vis-à-vis religious fundamentalism.

He postulated that the essential difference between Judaism and other religions, is that while Judaism clearly dictates in the Torah “and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your might,” very quickly in the same set of books it goes on to say (as we shall hear again at Sabbath services in just two weeks): “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”  

His point was that in the name of love people are capable of doing terrible things to others which would be impermissible in the name of justice.  So, for example, in Christianity the love of God was so great that it fostered the Crusades and the Inquisition, neither of which would have been possible under the dictum of pursuing justice.  In Islam Mohammed’s approval of the killing of the Jews of Banu Qurayzas after they surrendered could not have occurred in the pursuit of justice.  And I could cite other examples as well.

Bringing this forward to today, we hear now almost weekly, if not more often, the ranting and ravings of the Iranian leadership urging that modern Israel be wiped of the face of the earth, and that the Zionist presence in this part of the world is a cancer that must be destroyed.  Even this week, we heard a new warning from Tehran that any outside interference in the affairs of Iran’s ally, Syria, will be met with the equivalent of a third world war. 

If one delves even deeper into the remarks of the Iranian leadership one sees additional references to the coming of the Mahdi and what needs to be done to bring the messenger of Islamic redemption to the earth.  The Inter-Islam Organization (see http://www.inter-islam.org/faith/mahdi1.htm) has created a list of what must happen in order for the Mahdi to appear.  One thought runs through the entire list of events as to what must occur for the Mahdi to appear and that is that calamities, death, and destruction have to be the order of the day.  Each time these terrible events stop they must start again and only under that situation will the Mahdi finally make himself known.

So, for the Iranian leadership that seems to believe it has the sole responsibility in the world to make all of this happen, it is imperative that they support death and destruction (as in Syria where over 20,000 people have died over the last 18 months) as well as threaten death and destruction as they do regularly against Israel (the little Satan), the United States (the big Satan) and now even the rest of the western world.

Thus, in the name of the great love of Allah it is permissible to sow the seeds of death and destruction anywhere in the world with the concomitant message that justice be damned.  It is this “value” that the West never understood about religious fundamentalism and, sadly, still does not understand.   As a matter of fact, the West probably does not even want to understand it. 

This morning’s papers are full of information saying that Iran has made “surprising” progress towards military nuclear capability.  Really?  We have been warning of this here for a number of years but the West, and particularly the U.S., chose to believe the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had suspended its nuclear military development in 2003.  And now the West is “surprised” that this was not the case?  What else has to happen before the West will believe the threats and act on them?  Or is it, God forbid, too late for that as well?

“Justice, justice shall you pursue” says the biblical commandment.  It is not simply enough to love God, the imperative is to serve God as well and the parameters that define that service are clear enough if anyone it willing to take the time to listen and act.   Edmund Burke was correct when he said “Evil prevails when good men do nothing.”  So the question remains, will we all pay the price of the blindness of our international leadership?  Clearly the enemy understands what it must do……do we?