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Stuart Schoffman: A Measure of Kindness

From the standpoint of Jewish ritual, the seven springtime weeks between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot are a time of sadness. This period is known as the Sefirah, which means "counting," and each evening, as the days are counted out, a blessing is recited that recalls the measure of barley, known as the Omer, that was offered on the second day of Passover in the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus the sadness, in part, derives from the fact that the Temple is no more. Moreover, tradition holds that in this season in the 2nd century, when the Romans cruelly suppressed the study of Torah, "twelve thousand pairs" of Rabbi Akiva�s students died -- because, the Talmud tells us, "they did not respect one another." Scholars also believe that the somber mood of the Sefirah may be related to the fragile status of agriculture in the Land of Israel, as farmers anxiously prayed to the Almighty that crops would ripen and not be laid waste by the hot desert winds that blow at this time of year.

Thus Sefirah may be seen as connoting not only counting but accounting, moral reckoning. This year, such reckoning seems appropriate. No sooner had Ariel Sharon returned from his diplomatic coup in Washington -- where President Bush not only declared that the Palestinian refugees would not be allowed to return to Israel proper, but that Israel, after withdrawing from Gaza, would retain its hold over portions of Judea and Samaria -- than Israeli forces iced the triumphant cake by assassinating Abdel Aziz Rantisi, nefarious leader of the Hamas in Gaza. On the face of it, all this adds up to a great victory for Israel and the Jewish people. Yet some good Jews -- I am one of them -- may also be made uneasy by these events. For triumphalism is a form of hubris not always apparent to the triumphant, and hubris, as the ancient Greeks knew, is the mortal enemy of the strong.

Not long ago I went on a tour of the Western Wall tunnels located underneath the Old City�s Muslim Quarter. Just north of the exposed section that constitutes the traditional holy site is a large vaulted hall known as Wilson�s Arch, an equally holy prayer area. Past that, the main tunnel follows the retaining wall of the Temple Mount, which extends for hundreds of meters, in the direction of the Damascus Gate.

In one of the subterranean chambers, a guide stood by an ele-gantly crafted model of the Second Temple and its surrounding walls and explained to the visitors, many of them tourists from the United States, the history and significance of what we saw. He did not mention, understandably enough, that in the fall of 1996 the opening of the northern end of the tunnel had sparked Palestinian rioting in which many people were killed and wounded. "Now let�s peel off the Muslim Quarter," the guide said, innocuously, and as someone pushed a button and little Arab homes and shops descended to reveal the lower part of the extended Western Wall, one of the visitors responded: "Barukh Hashem," praise God.

Meanwhile, in the streets above our heads -- it was late morning on a Friday -- Muslim men strode briskly toward the Temple Mount for prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, entering the sacred space they call Haram al-Sharif through the Gate of the Chain. Adjacent to that gate, atop Wilson�s Arch, is a building with a beautiful entranceway, a prime example of Mamluk architecture, dating from 1328, known as the Madrasa Tankiziyya. Originally a college of Islamic law, today it is the headquarters of the Israeli security forces who maintain order on the Temple Mount.

Down in the tunnel, at the spot that is designated as physically closest to the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum of the ancient Temple, the tour group passed a lone woman, who stood with eyes closed, gently rocking in fervent prayer. Here, in sharp contrast with the Wall outside, there are no restrictions on where a woman may pray. We inspected the remains of a Herodian marketplace and then, rather than exit into the heart of the Muslim Quarter, the group doubled back and made its way into the sunshine of the Western Wall plaza.

And then the shooting started. A loud boom and cracks of gunfire, and smoke rose from the Temple Mount. I was with my family. My kids were scared. I immediately recalled the autumn of 1990, when a riot broke out on the Mount and 17 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, and I was concerned that violence could again spin out of control. We quickly left the scene. I tried not to imagine how disastrous this episode could be, in today�s superheated political climate. We later learned that Muslim youths had begun the fray by throwing stones at Israeli Border Police stationed on the Mount and at the Jews at the Wall below, and that there were injuries from tear gas and rubber bullets, but fortunately no one was killed.

As we hurried out of the Old City, a man who�d been with us on the tour remarked that the Israelis, by not prohibiting Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount, displayed great leniency, considering the perpetual risk to Jews praying at the Wall. I was in no mood for an argument, but felt exactly the opposite: Why not, each Friday for an hour or two, relocate Jewish worshipers inside to Wilson�s Arch, thus eliminating the need for Israeli security forces on the Mount at the holiest moment of the Muslim week? By respecting the vanquished, by restricting the prerogatives of triumph, might we ourselves be safer and more secure in the end?

Such a suggestion surely runs counter to the spirit of the Bush-Sharon era; some would call it a foolish exercise in defeatism. All the same, as we are reminded during the Sefirah that our Temple is destroyed and our days on earth are numbered, a measure of kindness would be most opportune.