Being Bold: Peace is Not Passive
peace is not safe, peace is not accepting evil, peace is not excusing evil, peace is not shrinking, and peace cannot coexist with cowardice
I belong to a group of Jews, Muslims, and Christians studying Avot DeRabbi Natan every Tuesday morning under the tutelage of Lee Weissman. Feeling a bit despondent at the animosity he sees on his Facebook page in response to his posts about the Israel-Palestine conflict, lately Lee has turned his focus toward parts of the text that talk about peace. In Avot DeRabbi Natan 12:6, the sages question the notion of peace as passivity. Instead they describe peace as a bold pursuit, something we intentionally strive for in our daily lives.
“PURSUING PEACE. What does this mean? It teaches that a man should pursue peace in Israel among all men in the same way that Aaron pursued peace in Israel among all men; as it is stated, Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. R. Simeon b. Eleazar said: If a man stays at home in quietude, how can he pursue peace in Israel among all men? He should rather leave his home and go about the world so that he can pursue peace in Israel, as it is stated, Seek peace, and pursue it: meaning seek peace in your own place, and pursue it by going elsewhere.” — Avot DeRabbi Natan 12:6
As I get to know Bonhoeffer in my summer study of him — from the perspective of turmoil plaguing my own country, society, and historical era — this portrayal of peace resonates with me very deeply. Depart from evil and do good … seek peace, and pursue it. The sages go on to describe angels in comparison to humans — angels respect one another, they humble themselves before one another, humans jostle for superiority, we hate each other. They mention Sdom as an example. The people of Sdom committed sexual sins (rape, most primarily)1, and in doing so desecrated G-d. However they wrought their own destruction through their hatred of one another: “but, the people of Sdom, since they hated one another, the Holy Blessed One destroyed them [both] from this world and from the world to come.”
A similar thing happened in Europe, and the Middle East during Nazi rule. The Nazis sewed the seeds of division, dissent, hatred, and the people succumbed to the hatred, hatred of each other. We all know how that hatred decimated Europe, Germany in particular. Many of us know about the Farhud, which happened 85 years ago today, and led to the decimation of the oldest Jewish diaspora in the world, the Iraqi Jewish diaspora, which had existed since 586 BCE. Hatred destroys. Peace is not tolerance of hatred. Peace must be bold in the face of injustice.
Passivity is not peace.
Why do we confuse passivity with peace?
We seem so satisfied with staying home in our quietude, minding our own business, shushing ourselves, tolerating the intolerable through various manner of esoteric and downright moronic justification and abstraction and theorising. That’s not peace, though. Why do we think of that stuff as peacemaking? It’s participating in the evil. Bonhoeffer worked for peace, and his peacemaking work demanded boldness and courage — certainly not shrinking into passive quietude. In his speech at the World Alliance for International Friendship through the Churches conference in Fanø, Denmark, Bonhoeffer said, “there is no peace on the way to safety. Peace cannot be safe. Peace is opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust and this mistrust brings forth war. Battles are won not with weapons, but with G-d.” Peace demands a peculiar combination of temerity and trust in G-d.
We cannot be safe and work for peace. Safety is not peace.
Peace cannot be safe. Peace is opposite of security. Safety is not peace.
In 13:1 of the same text, Avot DeRabbi Natan, the sages advise, “make your Torah [study] a fixed thing, say little and do much, and greet everyone with a pleasant disposition.” To make your Torah study a fixed thing means to live it in your daily life, to bring it into all you say and do. Starting with saying less and doing more, starting with treating everyone around you with compassion and respect. Meaning don’t trot around in a haughty air, flapping your gums, writing cheques with your mouth that your ass can’t cash, behaving like an asshole and a d1ckhead as you move through your day.
Reader, this notion of making your Torah study a fixed thing reminds me of Bonhoeffer, who taught, lectured, and spoke about living the Gospel. He saw the Sermon on the Mount as something for Christians to put into practise in our daily lives. “We cannot be true to Christ when we allow injustice to happen and do nothing,” Bonhoeffer surmised. We must ask not what does it mean to do good, rather, we must ask what is the will of G-d?
What’s the takeaway?
That we must live our faith life out in the world. That faith life must take us well beyond sitting in church, or at home in prayer, or at Bible study, even. Faith in G-d, obedience to G-d means to live the Torah/Gospel out loud. Now, that doesn’t mean stand at the street corner calling everyone a sinner and telling them the fires of damnation await them — that’s self indulgent sh1t. No, living the Gospel out loud means seeing the world from the perspective of the lonely, the poor, the suffering, the marginalised, the persecuted. As per Isaiah 28:16, it means not fleeing.
If you have chosen safety and quietude, then you have chosen against peace. Peace does not mean the absence of war, it does not mean passively accepting the unacceptable so we can all have a smooth sail in life.
Peace is not passive. Peace is bold.
“A sculptor who wishes to carve a figure out of a block uses his chisel, first cutting away great chunks of marble, then smaller pieces, until he finally reaches a point where only a brush of hand is needed to reveal the figure. In the same way, the soul has to undergo tremendous mortifications at first, and then more refined detachments, until finally its Divine image is revealed … When we die to something, something comes alive within us. If we die to self, charity comes alive; if we die to pride, service comes alive; if we die to lust, reverence for personality comes alive; if we die to anger, love comes alive.” —Fulton J. Sheen in Peace of Soul, p. 219
I’m going to make myself somewhat unpopular and be a stickler about Sdom. The sin of Sdom is NOT homosexuality. That is not the Jewish exegetical understanding of the story of Sdom, that is a later Christian imposition onto the text. I have written an entire post on the sin of Sdom, actually. Go Fish.