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Judaism aims for a human ideal

After the Second World War, the Jewish community, which was barely recovering from having been targeted by the racist and institutional violence of that sad era, saw its intellectuals such as Levinas, Manitou, Elie Wiesel, among so many others, to stand up and explain to the world the nuances and depth of Jewish culture. This attitude took into account the reality of the other, the one who has not had the opportunity to be exposed to the knowledge of the Jewish people, and who can become a victim of racist discourse, letting themselves be fascinated by the reductive propaganda of the human being which is the basis of this discourse. These post-war Jewish intellectuals understood that to truly protect the victims, to guarantee their survival in the future, it was not enough to remain on the defensive. It was not enough to protest the generational stupidity of anti-Semitic racism, but that it was necessary to reveal, to bring out the teaching and the humanitarian wisdom of Judaism so as not to remain in a waiting position in relation to anti-Semitic discourse. Judaism understands a human ideal, a way of looking at the real value in human potential, which makes the dream of happiness for all a practice that transforms this dream into reality. The real weapons of resistance and victory over cruelty and injustice, the tools that make universal love a real possibility are already present in the Sabbath, in the Jewish holidays, in the stories and interpretations of the Law. These post-war Jewish intellectuals understood this. Wiesel could have based his entire work on the horror of the Holocaust that he experienced personally and that marked him in the depths of his individual experience. But apart from a few works, including “The Night”, which is a key work to have a look at this period heavy with consequences, Wiesel’s writing has above all allowed the general public to better understand the ancestral message of the Jewish community, especially that of Europe, thanks to works like “Hassidic Celebration”. This message, and the look at the whole human being that it makes us hear, is the ultimate response to the medieval attacks of anti-Semitic insults. When the wisdom of Judaism becomes visible, palpable, the humanism it contains is immediately revealed. Everyone can see themselves in this universal wisdom. Read “Talmudic Celebration” by Wiesel,
it is simply to glean information on the history of the masters of the Oral Torah, it is also and above all to immunize oneself from the caricatural attacks on the Talmud which delight anti-Semites of all stripes. Today, unfortunately, it seems that controversy is in the spotlight and that only anti-Semitism can trigger a conversation about Judaism. This is a problem that can have important ramifications, because you don’t build a community on a defensive discourse around your culture. The enemy doesn’t make me who I am. It is not just by defending myself that I get out of the excesses of aggression. We are not saying that this is to deny that aggression exists. On the contrary, this questioning brings to the surface the underlying problem of the representation of oneself to the other, and especially to oneself. The overarching question is whether a defensive Judaism is really attractive to Jewish youth today. Can these young people accept this role of being a target of hatred without many other options than to say that it is not fair, or that we must react to insults with other insults, violence by violence. This question, we hear it everywhere. And we hear it especially in the statistics that say that more than 70 percent of European Jews practice virtually no form of Judaism. The horizon that closes in an identity on the defensive is in our opinion the main cause. African Judaism is an open door to the dream, to the future, to the beauty of the Jewish Wisdom tradition seeing an almost miraculous rebirth on the African continent. This continent has also suffered from racism and genocide, and it is still the scene of many humanitarian trials. But in the midst of all this, the flower of Judaism, its compassionate gaze on human beings, is in full bloom. anti-Semitism also exists in Africa, but it is not central to the conversation about being Jewish.
We believe that the presence of this African Judaism has the power to inspire, to renew the primordial conversation, which is that of the universal message of which the Jewish people is the bearer. We teach in our schools in Africa that more than the literal biblical text, it is Pirkei-Avot that truly conveys the teaching of the Hebrew Wisdom expressed in the Bible. One of the teachings of Pirkei-Avot tells us: “Be disciples of Aaron the Priest: love all creatures, and bring them closer to the Torah.” It is, in essence, the ultimate antidote to intolerance and its unfortunate consequences, and it was understood by brilliant post-war Jewish intellectuals. We say, let’s all re-read Benamozeg and his superb “Israel and Humanity”. Let’s immerse ourselves in Buber and his “The I and the You” and his “Gog and Magog”. Let us reread Levinas, reread the translations of André Chouraqui’s “Duties of the Hearts”, Wiesel’s “Celebrations” and other works of universal significance written by these thinkers, who had barely emerged from a bath of inexpressible violence, we knew express the deepest truth of the victim, the one that has nothing to do with his experience as a victim. It is a truth that has such healing power that it not only heals the victim but also the context in which it is possible to become the aggressor. Seeing less far than that is a danger that these intellectual lights have been able to recognize. As the wise King Solomon, the supreme Hebrew symbol of reflection, says in his Proverbs: “Birtsot Hashem Darkey Ish, Gam Oyevav Yashlim Ito: When the Lord accepts the ways of man, He will pacify him, even with his enemies”. Our generation is the one that must understand that spreading the light of Judaism is the most effective way to spread good understanding, peace and the divine art of living together harmoniously..

 

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