Focus

A Distorted
Judaism

LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

rime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, speaking in the
Knesset, said Baruch
Goldstein "grew up in a
swamp whose roots are over-
seas; even here, they are foreign
to Judaism, they do not belong
to us." Perhaps that's how most
Israelis distanced themselves
from Dr. Goldstein's Hebron
massacre; by viewing it as an
aberration, as something out-
side of Judaism and Israeli so-
ciety.
But Orthodox Rabbi David
Hartman views it differently.
"I think that by looking at it
as something alien, or as some
accident, then we never have to
examine ourselves. This is not
an accident. This is clearly
something that grows in this
country. It's something that
grows out of our tradition," said
Rabbi Hartman.
"There's a lot in the Jewish
religion that can lead to this
type of racist understanding. It
is there, but there are also
many beautiful things there,
many powerful things, many
deeply spiritual things."
Rabbi Hartman is seen as
something as an anomaly in Or-
thodox circles. While Orthodoxy
is usually associated with na-
tionalistic, dogmatic Judaism,
Rabbi Hartman preaches the
opposite: a Judaism that calls
for empathic treatment of the
Palestinian "stranger among
us," and an interpretive, not
fundamentalist, approach to
Jewish law.
Since coming here from Mon-
treal in 1971, the New York-
bred Rabbi Hartman, 62, has
won a following among many
Jews — Israeli and North
American, religious and secu-
lar — with his impassioned
writings and lectures.
In an interview at the
Shalom Hartman Institute,
which he founded and directs,
Rabbi Hartman addressed the
fact that Dr. Goldstein and his
mentor, the late Rabbi Meir Ka-
hane, were guided by the same
Jewish sources that guide him.
"Kahane quoted scripture,"
he noted. "The difference be-
tween myself and them is that
an Orthodox Jew never builds
his life on the literal meaning
of the Bible. The Bible never
speaks unless it is filtered, me-
diated via the living traditions
of the community. This is called
the oral tradition. "Amalek (the
Israelites' traditional enemy,
whose complete destruction is
commanded in the Bible) long
ago left our consciousness as the

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defining feature of the (non-
Jewish) world, and the idea of
wiping out women and children
also has left our mind set.
"Therefore, you can't go back
to the Book of Joshua and the
Book of Deuteronomy and say,
'That's the way it's written.' You
have to ask, 'How was this un-
derstood (later), how was it ap-
plied in Jewish life?' " Rabbi
Hartman continued. "What
Goldstein did was he heard the
Bible and forgot what the Mish-
nah said — that he who saves
one life is as if he saves a whole
world. He forgot that the rabbis
and others later on in Jewish
history tried to develop within
Jews the consciousness of the
sacredness of all human life —
Jewish and gentile."
The Hebron massacre grew
out of a strain within the Jew-
ish people that anathematizes
the enemy.

"What Goldstein did
was remind me how
dangerous it is to
allow the language
of Amalek to go
unchallenged."

"What Goldstein did was re-
mind me how dangerous it is to
allow the language of Amalek
to go unchallenged. Goldstein
has challenged me to know the
type of human, moral crimes
you can commit in the name of
making the Land of Israel the
exclusive value, and sovereign-
ty over the whole land."
Noting that Jews from well
beyond the thin ranks of the
Kach movement spawned by
Rabbi Kahane had praises and
blessings for Dr. Goldstein, Rab-
bi Hartman said:
"It's not just a lunatic fringe.
It is a diseased element that is
capable of infiltrating into the
Jewish self-understanding."
The massacre must force the
Jewish community at large to
face its "exaggerated self-con-
gratulatory ethos," he added. "I
think something very important
happened here. We saw that
murdering people who are
kneeling in prayer is something
that a Jew can do. It has shat-
tered the myth that there's
some protective mechanism
within our souls which doesn't
allow us to commit some sort of
vile, murderous act." ❑