Pinchas. I cannot because I am Jewish

If only things were simple. This is my reaction when I think to the horrendous carnage in Nice, less than ten days ago. If only things were that simple. This is, too, my reaction to the other episode of Islamic motivated violence, on a train in Germany, last week. If only things were that simple.

We are told that radicalisation happens in isolation. We read that these two murderers were alienated, frustrated and that they did not regularly attend any mosque. We are informed that they were not pious Muslim: actually, the Franco-Tunisian mass murderer seems to have led a very promiscuous life. Then, so it seems, he decided that making war was better than making love. This is not the real Islam, because Islam is a religion of peace, they say.

Therefore someone, some pervert, some criminal, must have twisted the teachings of such a religion of peace. Therefore these Muslim men must have been brainwashed by some evil mind, some terrorist leader, aiming to exploit their feelings of alienation. And therefore we have to work hard against this feeling of alienation.

We must build an inclusive society so that the Muslim newcomers to Europe will benefit from inclusion so that they will feel part of the same society we are part of. And they will not listen to the twisted teachings of the extremists, radical Islamists: Wahabite, Salafites or whatever.

To which I reply: if only things were that simple.

The more we know about the background of Islamic terrorists and murderers, the more we see that this sociological explanation does not hold water. It is probably not the case of these last; but let’s not forget that many, many of the Muslim extremists who have joined the ISIS came from very posh background. They were deejays, personal trainers, doctors, engineers. Certainly not alienated or marginalised young men.

And there is another explanation that we hear nowadays, every time news of Islamic extremism reach us: we are lectured about the horrors of colonialism, to which Islamism is a reaction, we are told that it is always a reaction. A reaction to the Gulf Wars, a reaction to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a reaction -guess what — to the occupation of Palestine etc… Muslim people are peaceful; Islam is a religion of peace. Radical, terroristic Islam is allegedly a reaction to the perpetual violence that we, the guilty Westerners, infer to the Arab population since the war in Iraq, or maybe the First World War (you know: the Balfour Declaration…), or who knows, the end of the Ottoman Empire, or even the Crusades.

Islam is not guilty. Muslims are only reacting. We are the ones to blame because a young man axes passengers on a train in Germany; and/or because a Tunisian born man massacred eighty-four French citizens, and injures several more, on the anniversary of the French Revolution.

And, here, too, my answer is: if only things were that simple. Because you know what? I would really like to live in a world where these people, where these commentators, are living. Religious violence comes to surface here in Europe, in the Western World.

Centuries ago, we had the religion wars: hundreds of people were killed, here, in England too, because they refused to believe, or refused to give up the belief in, obscure details of the New Testament: the virginity of Mary, the Primate of Peter… That was centuries ago. We thought it was over, but we have, once again, people killing other people because of religious beliefs.

That is tragic, that is pure horror. I would love to trust those commentators and academics who lecture about the need for inclusion, and colonial guilt, and Muslims who are all peaceful, and Islam which is a religion of peace, and if only we would become more inclusive, and if only we would give up the war, and of course, if only we Jews left Palestine (or accept to become second class citizens, under some form of Islamic rule) then Muslim terrorism will disappear and we will all live in safety and peace in Europe and in the United Kingdom. I would really love to share the faith in this belief.

But I cannot.

I cannot because I am Jewish. I cannot because in my tradition there is the story of Pinchas, which we have read last week.

Pinchas: the Israelite man who killed another Israelite man and a Moabite woman, “because of their immorality”. The commentators say this is a clean way of saying that they were having sex. You see: our tradition, Jewish tradition, is familiar with religious violence. The Torah, the Bible is full of religious violence. But Judaism does not approve of it at all. And we see it clearly in the story of Pinchas. That episode, the killing, happened actually in last week’s Torah portion. This week we are dealing with the aftermath.

Now the Rabbis wonder why the narrative is broken at that point so that we have to wait one week before reading its outcome. And the answer is striking for its depth: because we should never rush to reward extremism. We are to wait, even in the Torah itself, until later events clarify the real intentions of actions religiously motivated.

In the Torah scroll itself the letter yud in Pinchas’s name in the second verse, v. 11, is written smaller than the other letters. That is because when we commit violence, even if justifiable, the yud in us diminishes. The yud: the first letter of the Name of God, and the first letter of the word Yehudi, Jew. Even if religiously motivated, even if driven by justice, violence makes us less human, less Jewish, and less connected to God. This is the teaching of Jewish tradition. This is where we come from.

For this reason, I feel I cannot accept the justifications of Muslim fundamentalist violence, as much as they look attractive, fashioned as they are in sociological or historical jargon. Our tradition is familiar with religious violence, but it does not approve of religious violence. We expect everybody, including our fellow Muslim citizens, to do the same.

Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue, 23rd July 2016, 17 Tammuz 57