“Pray for Peace”

As I write these words, our nation is at war. Perhaps by the time you read these words the war will have come to an end, and efforts to rebuild a nation in Iraq will have begun.

Like many others, I have conflicting feelings about this military action. While most people oppose the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, while we find the reports of his despotic and evil mistreatment of his people horrifying, and while we fear that he possesses and intends to use weapons of mass destruction, we also wonder if it is proper for the United States to initiate a pre-emptive war without the full support of the United Nations. It makes many people uncomfortable to see the United States justifying our role in bringing about regime change for other nations. And so, we dream, and pray, and hope that we can live in a world full of Shalom.

The coming festival of Pesach may provide some insight that can help us to grapple with our confusion. One commonly debated point in the story of the Exodus from Egypt revolves around the fact that as Moses goes to Pharaoh and demands that he let the Jewish people go free, Pharaoh agrees to Moses’ demands. Suddenly, though, “God hardens Pharaoh’s heart,” and brings the Jewish people back into slavery. But why does God “harden Pharaoh’s heart?” One commentary in the Midrash suggests that when God saw that Pharaoh did not yield after five plagues, God decided to harden Pharaoh’s heart in order to allow him to come to truly understand that he was wrong and repent.

Perhaps this is the point of President Bush’s stance towards Iraq as well. Saddam has had ample opportunity to respond to the demands of the rest of the world that he “let us go” so that we may be free from the fear of his weapons of mass destruction, and so that his people may live in freedom. Now, as we have set out on the course of military action and war, we must pray that ours is truly an act of justice, and that the change we seek to bring about will lead to peace and well-being.

But there are other ways to apply the lessons of Pesach to these events. In the Haggadah we are reminded that “in every generation, we are commanded to see ourselves as if we, ourselves, went forth from Egypt.” We must never stand idly by while another person suffers. Now is the time to act. Whether we support the war effort or not, whether we agree with the justification for war, we must now support those who are in harm’s way and work to maintain the justice and freedom we cherish so much. We have no choice. We must always stand up in the face of evil and do our best to end it. And so, despite or because of our fears, our doubts, our wishes, we pray that this war will soon end.

And we pray for peace

James M. Bennett