Cross-cultural generosity, not mean-spiritedness

Hedi Ayoub, a 22-year old personal trainer, recently married, was shot dead in in a Punchbowl children’s playground, in broad daylight, with children playing in the vicinity. Brother Mohammad Hoblos spoke at his funeral.

Last week I posted on Facebook an impassioned graveside sermon by Mohammad Hoblos, a Lebanese Muslim.1  Hoblos told the mourners at the funeral of Hedi Ayoub:"there are no gangsters in paradise", "...twenty-two years old, built like a tank... (a) one dollar (bullet) brought him to the ground" and quoted a line from a rap song: "Why are we so blind to see that the ones we hurt are you and me?". He spoke against glorifying violence and materialism and stated that a Muslim who kills another Muslim will never get to heaven.  One Facebook comment, however, got caught up on the inward focus of the talk - “Why doesn’t he talk about the real issues, such as ISIS and violence against non-Muslims?”!

It is wrong to look at Muslims in general through the lens of ISIS and terrorism. And Hoblos was certainly talking about issues that are very real to people he actually knows.   A generous approach would be to look at the merit of what he was saying, at an open grave no less, rather than seeking fault in what he didn’t say.  In fact, many of my Facebook friends of Jewish and other backgrounds did make positive and appreciative comments afterwards about Hoblos’ sermon, e.g. “that was a great post yesterday of the speech at funeral...”

Last week I myself experienced the cross-cultural generosity of a Muslim family.  Zohra and Abbas Aly had invited me for dinner, which is difficult for me because of the way I practice Kosher. I can’t eat anything cooked in pots used for non-Kosher for example. They generously let me to cook on a sandwich maker in their own kitchen!

The theme of generosity can also be found, if one looks for it, in the Torah reading this past week. God commanded the Jews to take revenge against Midyan.2  While a critical approach would reasonably focus on the revenge, a more generous approach will probe further.

The crime that Midyan was to be punished for, according to our oral tradition, was that the Midyanites and Moabites used sex as a weapon of war. Not by raping the enemies’ women, as still sadly happens today, but as a way to spiritually destroy the Jews by having their daughters seduce Jewish men and then pressure them to worship the gods of their enemies.

In this context, spiritual strength or weakness was everything. The Moabites and Midyanites had sought to destroy the Jews through the curses of the sorcerer Balaam.  Balaam had let them down by blessing the Jews instead of cursing them, yet he also provided a clue to their vulnerability.3  He asserted that God “did not look at evil in Jacob”.4  Balaam went on to advise his clients that if the Jews could be led to sin this would result in their destruction.5  This plan was implemented although the Torah places responsibility6, at least initially, on the Jewish men who we are told “began to commit harlotry with the daughters of the Moabites. They (the Moabite daughters) invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and prostrated themselves to their gods”.7

Despite the Moabites participation in this bizarre sin, they are not included in God’s planned vengeance, which is restricted to Midyan. This is for two reasons that involve generous thinking. One is the fact that the Moabites legitimately feared attack by the Jews.  A second is that although, technically speaking, the Jews had done nothing against the Moabites, they had possession of land that had been traditionally Moabite. The Jews had conquered that land in a war with the Emorites who had themselves taken the land from the Moabites. This legitimate grievance is seen as a significant mitigating factor.8

My thoughts and prayers are with the Hedi Ayoub family, friends and community. Just as, when I was grieving over the violent loss of my brothers’ friend, the late Gabi Holzberg, in the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008, many of my Muslim friends sent me messages of condolence.

Let us respond to each other, in good times and bad, with cross-cultural compassion and generosity.

1  https://www.facebook.com/theaustralianmuslim?ref=ts&fref=ts, also available at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fGEwzptQew in full, or edited version at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=3ROpW9ygp5Y

2  Numbers 25:18
3  Chizkuni
4   Numbers 23:21
5  Talmud Sanhedrin 105, also see allusion to Balaam in Number 31:16 6 Lebovitz, N, New

6   Studies in Bamidbar

7  Numbers 25:1-2 8 Ralbag
8  Chizkuni