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Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, the founding director of Ono Academic College’s International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry, sends us a video message in which he discusses how Ethiopian Jewish Philosophy can help us deal with tragedy. He notes:
During these difficult times, we are all looking for an anchor; we are looking for answers; We are in great need of guidance; We want tools that will help us overcome these terrible moments of despair and depression, anger and disappointment.
Our loss is so great that there are no words to describe it. How can we continue from here?
The fundamental concept in the biblical theology of Beta Israel’s holy text, the “Mitzhapa Kaddus” is that the human world does not operate in a linear manner. Instead, it operates, for the most part, in a chaotic manner and is not predictable in any way. The human world is not a world that operates according to cause and effect or action and reaction. It is an unpredictable, but at the same time, an understandable, world.
Understanding this requires us, among other things, to stop asking why tragedies happen to us. We cannot understand the purpose of evil. Rather, we must accept the situation humbly and immediately engage in action and doing. Believers in this Ethiopian Jewish theology do not try to change reality but instead try to accept it. They do not try to adapt reality to themselves. They try to adapt themselves to reality.
This theology seeks to let go of what happened and instead to rise up and continue with our lives. This is the secret that Abraham our father learned when in the Book of Genesis, God told him, “Lech Lecha” (Go forth from your land). This command can be interpreted as “Go forth. . . into the Land of Israel” or alternatively “Go forth. . . deeper into yourself.” In both cases, what God is saying to Abraham is that he should go and keep going and never stop.
This is the secret of the Beta Israel Ethiopian Jewish community. It perpetuated us as we embarked on a difficult and arduous journey from Ethiopia to Jerusalem. The losses we endured on the trek were too great to bear. However, the Jews of Ethiopia and the rest of the Jews of the world, being the children of our patriarch Abraham, know that even in the moments of our greatest depression, we cannot stop and need to keep going.
In this context, I was so excited to hear the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, say, a few years ago, “There four most important words in the Torah are “Let there be light.” Peres elaborated, saying, “Even out of the darkness of the Holocaust, we Jews always knew how to see the light, the hope.”
The Israeli spirit that has been revealed in recent weeks following the horrific October 7th atrocities, is not only pulsating within us but also awe-inspiring to all who witness it. This is the spirit from the days of Genesis that awakens in us at certain critical moments in our history. In Genesis, we read that God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was chaos and darkness and darkness covered the face of the abyss, and God’s spirit hovered over the water and God said let there be light and there was light.
About a year from now, after we finish cleansing the Gaza Strip of the evil of Hamas, I can see in my mind’s eye how the residents of the South return to the settlements and kibbutzim that were destroyed and make the wasteland bloom anew. Oh, the situation will not return to what it was before the war. Instead, the settlements and kibbutzim will double in size. I am already booking a place to participate, at least for a part of the time, in the next nature party in Kibbutz Re’im. I advise you to book your tickets now, because if you don’t there will be no room at this party. And don’t worry, there won’t need to be a mechitza partition separating men and women. The nature party of October 7th 2023, which turned into a terrible nightmare, will turn into a healing nature party one year from now – marking the healing of Israel’s entire society. Let there be light.
