Ireland’s fog of prejudice

It is striking that at a time when the Torah just commanded us to learn how to see, we are also confronted with examples of what happens when prejudice prevents people from seeing clearly.

Ireland has a long and painful history of living under British rule. The memory of oppression, struggle for national self-determination and resistance to a powerful empire is deeply embedded in the Irish consciousness.

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Logically, that history should create a natural sympathy for the Jewish people and for Israel.

The Jewish people, too, have experienced centuries of foreign domination, persecution and exile. Israel has emerged from a history in which Jews were repeatedly denied security, sovereignty and the ability to determine their own destiny. Israel itself was also governed under the British Mandate before its independence in 1948.

One might therefore expect Ireland, of all countries, to understand the complexity of a people seeking security and self-determination after generations of suffering. Yet sometimes, history teaches the opposite lesson. People can remember their own oppression while becoming blind or indifferent to the experiences of others.

Last week exposed a particularly striking example in the debate over Israeli technology in Ireland.

Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense company, has developed a sophisticated aviation navigation technology that helps aircraft operate and land safely in difficult weather conditions, including conditions of poor visibility. This navigation system has become a near standard on military and state jets in countries across the world.

Ireland, a country famously familiar with fog, should be especially capable of appreciating the value of technology that helps pilots navigate safely when they cannot rely on their eyes alone.

And yet, headlines were made last week when it was reported that the Irish government refused to install this advanced landing system in official state aircraft—the Irish “Air Force One”—due to its Israeli origin. The twisted irony is so difficult to miss. A nation accustomed to physical fog is allowing the ideological fog that clouds its moral vision to imperil the safety of its leaders.

This is not just a hypothetical risk. In 2011, an airplane attempting to land in Cork, Ireland, crashed in dense fog after three failed attempts to land, killing a relative of the Irish president and five other people.

When a technology that can improve aviation is judged not according to what it does, but according to the nationality of the people who developed it, something has gone seriously wrong.

There is an old Chassidic expression, Leben mit der zeit, which means, “Live with the times.” The meaning is that there is always a lesson we can learn from the weekly Torah portion or events in Jewish history that can give us guidance for how to interpret events happening in our lives and around the world.

At the same time this Irish fiasco unfolded, Jews around the world read the Torah portion Re’eh, which means “Look.” Traditional commentaries have suggested that it be translated more appropriately as “teach how to see.”

This past week was also the yahrzeit of a remarkable rabbi named Levi Yitzchak Schneerson. If only the government of Ireland would have gleaned the lesson of this rabbi’s life, their leaders could be a great deal safer.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the father of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—was subjected to extraordinary persecution by Stalin’s Soviet regime. He was arrested, imprisoned and ultimately exiled to the barren wilderness of Kazakhstan because of his dedication to spreading Jewish life and Torah when expression of religion was strictly outlawed.

To the ordinary eye, his circumstances seemed to represent total defeat. He was a great Torah scholar, yet in his exile, he had almost nothing: no library, no comfortable study, no access to the normal tools of scholarship. He lived under conditions designed to break the human spirit.

But Rabbi Levi Yitzchak saw something different. Where others saw desolation, he saw Torah. Where others saw suffering, he saw an opportunity for spiritual perseverance. Where others saw an all-powerful Communist empire, he saw that the only eternal truth was Torah.

This clarity of vision allowed him to persevere amid the overwhelming odds against him. The only Torah teachings that are preserved from Rabbi Levi Yitzchak were written with a special ink made from berries, roots and leaves that his wife Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson helped make from whatever materials could be found in the forest. He scribbled his Torah teachings on the margins of his prayer book, as he had no paper to write on.

His response to persecution was not to abandon Jewish life or withdraw from his people. He continued to teach, write and strengthen Jewish identity. His sacrifice became a source of Torah for generations of Jews throughout the world.

His physical surroundings were dark, but his vision remained clear. That is the difference between merely seeing something and true vision.

Anyone can see what is right in front of them on the surface or in the near future. However, one with true vision sees what lies beneath the surface and what the long-term effects of their actions can be. One with short-sighted vision sees a Jew, an Israeli or an Irishman—and immediately attaches a set of assumptions that warrant politically convenient responses.

One who possesses true vision understands that there is an underlying truth to reality. It allows us to condemn what deserves condemnation without condemning an entire people. Having vision allows us to disagree with the policies of a government without rejecting every achievement of its citizens.

Ireland is caught in a spiral of short-sightedness that prevents it from remembering that its own experience of British rule has historical parallels with the Jewish people and their historical trauma and aspirations.

That is what the commentaries meant when they said that Re’eh means “learn to see.” It means that we must learn to differentiate short-sightedness, which elevates near-term solutions and political expediency, from true vision, which allows us to see the truth clearly even in the fog.

It’s the truth that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak understood and one that the Irish people are desperate for their leaders to possess. Ireland knows what physical fog feels like, and perhaps in time, they will come to see how dangerous moral fog can become.

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