Bereshit 5784/2023 – Is God Master of Wars?

Bereshit 5784/2023 – Is God Master of Wars?

By Rabbi Steve Golden

Rabbi Steve Golden is a member of Morashah, the rabbinic fellowship of UTJ and Rabbi of The Sephardic Temple of Cedarhurst

I don’t know the emotions or thoughts that were raised in your hearts and minds during this morning’s service. But I can tell you that I have been preparing for the experience of this Torah reading all week.

This Shabbat we read the familiar passages of the Torah’s two accounts of G-d’s creation of the universe. The first story set out in Genesis chapter 1 has many repetitions of words, and the dramatic tension builds with each successive day of G-d’s creative work.

The mental images of the immensity of the cosmos and enormous diversity of life that teem over the face of the earth and its sky form more than just a gargantuan tapestry or mural. It is life itself, in all its varied forms, and if we read it slowly and thoughtfully we are lifted up when recognizing that each of us has a place in this miracle we call the universe.

Our Sages were the first to teach that if a person saves one life they have saved an entire universe (Note added by Rabbi Noah Gradofsky: See Mishnah Sanhedrin 5:4,  Note that the word מישראל (Jewish) does not appear in many versions of the Mishnah and is believed to have been added later) and the converse: to extinguish one life is tantamount to destroying an entire universe. Islam took this teaching from our talmud (Qur’an 5:32). But unless this principle becomes assimilated completely, both in a person’s heart and mind, then it doesn’t matter which religion has it on their books – it is all too easy to split hairs and come up with flimsy exceptions to this moral ramification of monotheism.

The value of life is at the core of the quest for peace – a process whereby a nation decides either willingly or is forced into submission to choose a path that forgoes the taking of human life in order to reach its goal.

I well remember where I was on September 13th, 1993 at the moment when Rabin shook hands with Arafat. I was in my car driving to the yeshibah for classes, and had pulled over on the side of the road, and I cried for joy. I thought about my 7 month old daughter Navah and imagined the world in which she would grow up. A world of Peace.

Thirty years later, and I’m sitting on my couch Sunday night and watching the news from Israel, and crying from grief. Thinking about the babies massacred, and children bereft of parents and grandparents.

The next morning I sat at minyan – and one of the first prayers that I heard recited at the beginning of the shahrit service was BA’AL MILHAMOT – a phrase praising G-d as ‘Master of Wars’. At that moment it was clear that I had come crashing down from the beauty of the end of the festival celebrating with our Hataneem, to a deep ravine of impossible thoughts and dissonance.

How can anyone pretend to pray these words?!? I find it impossible to believe that G-d sent Hamas terrorists to make war with Israel. I believe, as most modern people do, that humans wage war because we have free will, and not that G-d makes specific designs for terrorists to slaughter and mutilate. If war is the purview of human beings, and not the action of G-d, then isn’t it a lie to stand in front of G-d and say that the Holy One is the lord of wars – BA’AL MILHAMOT?

How did this phrase come into the siddoor?

In ancient Israel, GIBBOR MILHAMAH was a term used to portray the divine as a Warrior god. This conception of the deity was borrowed from the widespread tribal conception in the Ancient Near East that all gods were territorial, and therefore, the gods just mirrored what humans saw around them.

In a world of endless wars over land and resources, when people wanted to pray it was conventional wisdom to invoke a patron warrior-god. This was almost inescapable in a monolatrous world, as each nation’s gods had power only over their land and would be called upon to fight their foes in battle. The Canaanites had their warrior-gods: the brother and sister war gods Anat and Baal – along with their father El.

So when the composers of this prayer before the Shema thought about how they might describe G-d’s daily creative work of renewing Creation, they provided a string of phrases:

PO’EL GEBUROT – He alone works mighty deeds

‘OSEH HADASHOT – making things new

ZORE’A TSEDAQOT – sowing righteousness

MATSME’AH YESHU’OT – letting salvation blossom

BORE’ REFU’OT – creating cures

BA’AL MILHAMOT likely entered this list because, back then, to combat the pagan, monolatrous worldview, it was very important to make sure people knew that G-d was in charge of everything under the sun.

But we live in a vastly different world.

And while monolatry still lurks everywhere, at least with respect to this one idea only the primitive believe that G-d brings war with all its horrors. You’ve seen by now the pictures of Jews dressed in black standing next to those who are rallying in support of Hamas and their evil. The real problem is the system of primitive thought that teaches those people to blame the victims. But I think the overwhelming majority of Jews understand that humans wage war as part of our license for free-will.

And for that very reason many feel uncomfortable invoking G-d as ‘master of wars’. Take, for example, Dr. Pool. The key to his English translations of the prayer book is that things in the Hebrew language which are morally objectionable – DeSola Pool doesn’t translate faithfully.  Every time he knows that the Hebrew text is problematic, and has to potential to disturb worshippers, he whitewashes the text for the English reader.

Thus, when he gets to the phrase BA’AL MILHAMOT – ‘Master of War’ – in our siddoor, DeSola Pool puts ‘the L-rd over struggle’.

That’s not what the Hebrew says or implies.

More and more people have approached their rabbis, cantors and synagogue leadership to say that this phrase BA’AL MILHAMOT – which glorifies war – no longer represents the prayers of their hearts, and to ask them to leave these two little words out of the public shahrit prayer service.

On Tuesday evening, at the National Sephardic Prayer and Vigil for Israel, Rabbi Albert Gabbai gave us the defining rule for our spiritual life: the Torah teaches us that we should not have hatred in our hearts. This foundation of our faith should move us to stand far away from praising G-d for making wars. All it does is give oxygen to the idea that there are competing divine forces that wage war, or bar minan, that G-d carries out the violent destruction of the innocent, including women children and the elderly.

We stand steadfastly in support of Israel and what it needs to do to protect itself and to fight the barbarism of these terrorists. In this moment of war, we do pray earnestly for the IDF’s success to defeat and neutralize Hamas. And we beseech G-d for the safe return of hostages and soldiers to their families and loved ones. We ask G-d for the refu’ah shelemah of those injured physically and psychologically. All this we do with full conviction.

But why would we pray to G-d and call him BA’AL MILHAMOT?

If one needs to have a moment in one’s prayers to reflect on G-d’s hand in armed conflict, we could reflect upon the prayer found in Psalm 46:

“The L-rd puts a stop to wars throughout the earth, breaking the bow, snapping the spear…Be still and know that I am G-d…” (vv10-11)

May the day come speedily when our beloved Israel and also the entire world can live in peace and security. Amen.