Timeless Torah

There is a correlation between value and values. That Judaism established that each human being has value is in direct proportion to the values and the principles it preaches. On the other hand, the Arabs espouse hatred, violence, and mutilation...

Recent events have not been kind to those with a weak stomach. First, there was the vicious murder of the pregnant mother and her four daughters by Palestinian terrorists who emptied their guns point-blank, riddling bodies with dozens of bullets. This was not to make sure the family was dead, but simply to mutilate their bodies.

One week later, a landmine killed six Israeli soldiers. Nearby Arabs snatched body parts, dancing with and displaying them before the international media. Within the hour, terrorist groups proudly announced that the body parts had been distributed throughout Gaza. As if to prove their claim, Israel’s Channel 2 decided to show a Hamas barbarian pulling a finger from a bloodied burlap bag. Not willing to be upstaged, Al-Jazeera played a macabre scene of two hooded Islamic Jihad leaders calmly speaking about Israeli operations in Gaza while the human head of an Israeli lay, like a trophy, on the table before them.

It was now obvious that the bar of how to horrify an audience had been raised. So an Al-Qaeda-linked website ran the beheading of an American Jew in Iraq, recalling the beheading of another Jew, Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan.

“What’s happening,” you ask? “Has the world lost all of its moral bearing? And how does this compare to the disgraceful abuse of the Iraqi detainees by American soldiers?”

We all know that the behavior of a few prison guards does not represent the values of America: which is why decent soldiers who are put into very difficult situations, require discipline for abuse. Irrespective of how stressed-out these men and women might be immoral behaviors cannot be tolerated. But therein lays the basic difference between democracies and dictatorships. Free countries confront such abuses openly as these abnormal actions are abhorrent to us back home. Contrast this with the outrages perpetrated in Fallujah. Four American contractors were mutilated, burned, and publicly displayed to cheering crowds who gathered to joyously view the vulgarity.
While the above may provide a reference on the differences between these two cultures, it doesn’t explain why the Arab acts in the way he does. For that we must turn to the Bible. In Hebrew, one always places the noun, the subject we are speaking of, before the adjective it comes to describe. Thus we say “yeled tov”, a boy who is good (rather than “a good boy”). The “boy” is the subject; therefore he comes first. Only then does the description “good” follow.
There seems be no exceptions to this rule, bar one. In the Torah, Ishmael, the father of the Arabs, is described as “a wild man.” He is not called an “Adam pra-ee,” a man who is wild, but a “pereh adam”. In truth, this case is no anomaly. It actually follows the rules of Hebrew grammar. Ishmael is first and foremost represented by the noun, pereh, a wild creature. Only afterwards comes the adjective that describes this creature who appears in the form of adam, a man.

This is the enemy whom we are fighting. Not just us, but the entire world now confronts the Islamic fundamentalists who are aptly categorized as a specie of wild creatures. These messengers of death, intent on destroying civilization, must be recognized not for who, but for what they are.

Vayikra’s (third book of the Torah) final section prophesies in frightening detail, the misfortunes that will be our fate if we forsake our heritage. But the Torah couldn’t end this book, which emphasizes the spiritual greatness of our people, without first giving us a message of hope. Therefore, the portion’s final verses deal with pledges to the Holy Temple. Not just monetary gifts, but pledges based upon another individual whose value has already been pre-assigned (determined by age) according to the laws of the Torah. The message: Every person has value. We may be degraded, humbled, crushed or conquered. Still, we retain our intrinsic value.
There is a correlation between value and values. That Judaism established that each human being has value is in direct proportion to the values and the principles it preaches. On the other hand, the fact that the Arabs espouse hatred, violence, and mutilation is predicated upon the total disregard they have of human life. I am reminded of a famous anecdote. Before an open grave the Nazis had forced them to dig, a long line of naked Jews stood silently, waiting for death. One by one, they would be shot by the “civilized” Germans. One father asked a Nazi guard if he might say a final prayer before he was killed. The Nazi nodded. The father covered his and his son’s head with his hands and said loudly, “Baruch ata Hashem... shelo asani goy - Blessed is G-d... who did not make me a heathen.” He died sanctifying G-d’s Name al kidush Hashem. Our values are what give us value, and no one, not a Nazi or a terrorist, can take that away.