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4 HASHALOM May
2017
May 2017
HASHALOM
5
It only takes a word
MISHNA IMPOSSIBLE 10
Berachot 7 is a bumper Daf – extending over twelve pages, jampacked
with ideas of whether Hashem prays, how long a moment is and whether
there is a link between the name you have been given and the life you
will lead.
I was very taken with a discussion in the opening pages, about Balaam
the Prophet – the man who was planning to curse the Jews but ended
up praising them. It is said that Balaam was incredibly powerful because
he knew when Hashem was angry and could utter a curse at that very
point, when its effect would be strongest. This leads to a discussion about
when Hashem gets angry, and for how long. There is a difference of
opinion about how long Hashem is angry for – it is agreed that it is for a
“moment” but how long is that?? The Rabbonim differ – the Almighty is
angry either for 1/58,888 of an hour or the time it takes to say one word.
So, the Sages ask – what word could Balaam have said in “a moment” that
was such a powerful curse? The answer : destroy.
This resonates with me – Balaam could destroy a people by saying just
one word. Now, let’s think about our own lives. How easy is it to destroy,
to hurt with a word? How many verbal arrows that we aim at others are
that brief, but that powerful? And then think about how many words we
need to use to try to repair the damage, to heal the wound?
We are blessed with the power of speech but, as Spiderman says, with
great power comes great responsibility. We need to think more about
what we say and how we say it, we need to take more time to consider
the effect of what we say and whether it is worth it to open our mouths
at all.
It is so true – “destroy” is a one-word curse. So is “hate”.
Yet, “love” and “peace” are also one word messages, that bring light and
happiness and joy. They build up, they don’t break down.
So, as we are still on our spiritual journeys towards Sinai, perhaps we
should consider which words we choose to use and what we hope to
achieve – are we going to be Balaam or Beautiful?
By Warren Shapiro
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How barn owls are helping to bring
peace to the Middle East
www.djc.co.za
Margo Botha
A Conservation project that brought together Israelis and Palestinians is attracting interest from the
Chinese military, with suggestions a similar scheme could be tried in North and South Korea
By Ian Johnston – Independent UK
For some in the Middle East, the sight of a barn owl has traditionally
been regarded as a bad omen.
But, amid the seemingly endless failed attempts to bring peace to the
region, the bird has been transformed into a symbol of hope that the
bitter hatreds between different peoples can be overcome.
Talk of “a miracle” is not being ruled out with the extraordinary peace-
building effect of a conservation project attracting interest from the
Israeli, Jordanian, Swiss and Chinese militaries. There are also
suggestions something similar could be tried to help heal the divide
between North and South Korea.
It began 30 years ago as a modest scheme to help a barn owl
population, near Beit She’an in the Hula Valley in Israel, which had
been ravaged by poison used by farmers to control rodents. The barn
owls would eat the poisoned bodies, and then succumb themselves.
The area was near the border with Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian
Territories and, with the birds not observing international boundaries, it
was logical to involve people living there too.
Some 100 Israeli Jews, Jordanians, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs,
who might otherwise have had little contact, began to collaborate to
help the barn owls. Slowly, they found they became friends.
The ecologists behind the conservation project have now written an
academic paper about its extraordinary side-effect, called Nature knows
no boundaries: The role of nature conservation in peacebuilding, in the
journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
One of the researchers, Professor Alexandre Roulin of Lausanne
University in Switzerland, told The Independent: “Initially we started
this project for the barn owls. This was not for peace-building or
reconciliation. The idea was to solve an ecological problem.
“What we realised is, once we met with all these people … we realised,
wow, these people have really become friends.
He admitted the idea of helping to bring peace to the Middle East with
barn owls “initially might sound a bit of a strange idea”.
“But when we started to talk to people really directly involved in
international relations, they really loved this idea and said we should
really be building something with this,” he said.
“For them, this is a platform they can use to start something. I was
really surprised to see how convinced they are.”
He said he had been invited to give a talk about the project to the Swiss
Army and an officer, clearly impressed, had subsequently mentioned it
to counterparts in the Chinese military.
The Chinese officers also expressed interest, particularly in relation to
defusing tensions on the Korean peninsula.
“It would be really great to start something with North and South Korea,”
Professor Roulin said.
He said the project to save the barn owls had essentially given
Palestinians, Jordanians, Israeli Arabs and Israel Jews a common
cause, “something which everybody is concerned about”.
They studiously avoid talking about the conflict itself.
“We never talk about politics. This is something so sensitive, so
emotive, that’s why we have this approach. Everything is very sensitive
in the region. My God, wow,” Professor Roulin said.
“Actually, I experienced this once, when we started to talk about the
conflict. This starts to become a nightmare.”
Asked if he thought Middle East peace would ever be achieved, he
said: “What we need is a miracle, really, really, that’s what I think.
“I think this is like in India – Gandhi – we need something really special,
a miracle, because it is so complex.”
And asked if the barn owls could be that miracle, Professor Roulin said:
“I don’t know, no idea. A miracle is something we cannot produce.”
“This is just a seed. We should put water on the seed. I don’t know if
this will be a tree or a small grass, but I have to behave as if I think it
will become a tree.”
The paper was written with other academics but also Baruch Spiegel, a
former general in the Israeli Army, and Mansour Abu Rashid, Jordan’s
former chief of intelligence, now of the Amman Centre for Peace and
Development. Forty-four years ago, they would have been on the
opposite sides of the October War.
“The biodiversity crisis is one of the biggest challenges that humanity is
currently facing. Restoring ecological integrity is essential to maintain
a sustainable income deriving from ecosystem services something that
can bring communities in conflict to cooperate,” the paper said.
“Here, we show how we succeed in bringing people from Israel, Jordan
and the Palestinian Authority to the same table to solve environmental
problems.
“Conservation efforts, through environmentally friendly agricultural
practices and ecotourism, can prove beneficial for all communities
and create opportunities for a constructive dialogue across divides in
conflict zones.
“Conservation and peace-building can thus fruitfully feed each other,
a vision that should stimulate decision makers to integrate nature
conservation into peace-building interventions and scientists to
integrate societal issues into conservation projects.”
As for the barn owls and the farmers, they have also learned to co-exist
more happily – at the expense of the rodents.
While the farmers stopped poisoning them, numbers of their natural
predators, the barn owls, were boosted by a nest box building
programme and other measures.
Each barn owl pair can produce 11 offspring, which can eat up to
6,000 rodents a year “making them an efficient alternative to pesticides
for the farmers”. Crop production was unaffected by the switch from
pesticides to barn owl-led pest control.
Since 2002, Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians have held regular
meetings, even during periods of conflict. Documents are written in
Hebrew and Arabic.
“This is a highly symbolic undertaking and we successfully convinced
the Israeli and Jordanian armies, that were previously fighting against
each other, to promote nature protection,” the paper said.
“An example if co-operation following the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty is the
preservation of many bunkers abandoned along the border, which provide
a suitable habitat for 12 species of bats, some rare and endangered.
“Today, the Israeli and Jordanian armies are working hand-in-hand to
conserve the bats by adding bat-gripping areas to the ceilings.”