{"id":12125,"date":"2023-10-22T12:24:51","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T09:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=12125"},"modified":"2024-01-25T13:05:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T11:05:44","slug":"the-genesis-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/the-genesis-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Genesis War"},"content":{"rendered":"

This war requires a name rooted in Jewishness \u2013 and, after victory, one that calls us to correct course and start again from the beginning<\/h3>\n

This war does not have a name. Two weeks have gone by; over half the number of those killed in the Yom Kippur War have lost their lives, and nearly twice the number of those who fell in the Six-Day War \u2013 yet this disaster still has no name.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwords of Iron,\u201d the random name spit out by a military computer, is meaningless. The name of a war is supposed to link with it with a specific experience. In limited campaigns, hollow names suffice \u2013 who remembers the difference between \u201cCast Lead,\u201d \u201cProtective Edge,\u201d \u201cPillar of Defense,\u201d \u201cShield and Arrow,\u201d and \u201cGuardian of the Walls\u201d? These are all synthetic names from the same assembly line that produced \u201cSwords of Iron.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would also be inappropriate to name this war after the holiday on which erupted \u2013 the \u201cSimchat Torah War.\u201d Even the usual insensitivity of our leadership would not be able to reconcile\u00a0simcha<\/i>\u00a0or \u201crejoicing\u201d with \u201cwar.\u201d<\/p>\n

On its face, this is a marginal, even petty concern \u2013 and yet it\u2019s not. The name \u201cWar of Independence\u201d galvanized the consciousness of the fighters around the war\u2019s purpose. It prompted action. The \u201cSix-Day War\u201d poignantly expressed our swift and miraculous victory. The \u201cWar of Attrition,\u201d a name coined by Egypt\u2019s then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, effectively conveyed the essence of that event. \u201cPeace in the Galilee\u201d was, of course, a misnomer, misleading and inaccurate, but it tried, even so, to articulate its goal.<\/p>\n

Yet now, when 360,000 reservists have been armed and mobilized, when no Israeli home or family knows calm, when the world\u2019s largest aircraft carrier has been deployed to our shores, the war still has no name. My four sons and my two sons-in-law were called up, like all of their friends, to a war that has no name.<\/p>\n

A nameless person is called\u00a0almoni<\/i>\u00a0in Hebrew or \u201canonymous\u201d in English. These are adjectives that distance, alienate, cut off emotionally. The current war is still anonymous \u2013 like those \u201cunknown\u201d soldiers of the pre-state Lehi anthem \u2013 but it ought to have a fitting name.<\/p>\n

It is so present, so near, so threatening, so heartbreaking. It isn\u2019t anonymous to those who\u2019ve already paid the price of loss, injury, capture, or the haunting uncertainty of absence. It will be seared in their souls forever. It knocks on every door \u2013 first in Israel\u2019s south, later the entire country \u2013 and is therefore far from anonymous. And yet it still has no name.<\/p>\n

This is no accident: we\u2019re unsure about the meaning of the war, its essence, and so we\u2019re having trouble naming it.<\/p>\n

On the morning of Simchat Torah, the first rocket barrage drove us from our synagogues before we had finished reading, as is customary, the opening verses of\u00a0Sefer Bereshit<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 the Book of Genesis. We didn\u2019t hear the words \u201cAnd God said \u2018Let there be light.\u2019 And there was light \u2026 And God called the light Day, and the darkness Night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Right at the beginning of the human story we find that naming a thing creates it and reveals its essence. \u201cLight\/day\u201d and \u201cdarkness\/night\u201d are what they are because that is what they were named. Likewise, the name God gives to \u201cAdam\u201d hints at his finite nature (created from the dust of the earth (Adama<\/i>) to which he will return), and the name that Adam gives to Eve \u2013\u00a0Chava<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 points to her role in creating continuity despite finitude (\u201cthe mother of all living (Chai<\/i>)\u201d).<\/p>\n

Socrates believed that the responsibility for naming things should be entrusted to philosophers. I am not a philosopher, nor a copywriter. But I thought I might suggest:\u00a0The Genesis War<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In this way, we would clarify for ourselves and for the world that, unlike the two previous Israeli commonwealths, which ended in their eighth decade of existence, we, in our eighth decade of sovereignty, have only begun.<\/p>\n

It would reflect the determination of mind that the post-war Israel will not go back to the divided Israel it has been until now \u2013 without borders, a constitution, and proper governance. The Zionist journey that led to the ingathering of the exiles, the founding of the state and its phenomenal flourishing, has not ended. We will correct course and start again from the beginning \u2013 from Genesis. The Genesis War also harkens back to the day the war broke out \u2013 the day we started reading the Torah from the beginning, from Genesis. It\u2019s a name that imbues the war with a Jewish, trans-generational emotional charge. And also with an Israeli charge: \u201cTo wake up tomorrow morning with a new song in our hearts \/ To sing it with strength, to sing it with pain \/ To hear the flutes in the free breeze \/ and to start \u2013 from the beginning\u201d (from a Naomi Shemer song).<\/p>\n

Our children are going out to battle. Ostensibly they are facing a Gaza-based terrorist organization \u2013 but not really. What they are confronting, what we all are confronting, is fundamentalist Islam \u2013 both Sunni (Hamas) and Shiite (Hezbollah and Iran). Israel is under attack because of its Jewishness, and from that Jewishness \u2013 its beginnings, its Genesis \u2013 we draw the strength that will lead us to victory. Afterward, we will move on to the task of the present generation: rebooting the Zionist enterprise \u2013 from the beginning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
Yedidia Stern is the president of the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and a professor of law (emeritus) at Bar-Ilan University<\/em>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Published by the TOI<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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