Can the Whole World be Wrong?
 
by Sara Levinsky Rigler  

The whole world condemns Israel. What else is new? 

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking from 
Madrid on April 8, 2002, reiterated his demand that Israel 
immediately terminate its campaign against terrorism. 
Citing the opposition to Israel from China through Europe 
to the United States, Mr. Annan declared: "Can the whole 
world be wrong?"

This is where we Jews came in. Some 3800 years ago, the whole 
world worshipped pantheons of disparate forces embodied 
as various gods. A single individual, whose name was Abraham, 
claimed that all of existence emanated from one, indivisible, 
incorporeal God. Abraham was labeled an Ivri (Hebrew), 
meaning that he came from the other side. While this 
appellation may have had a geographical origin (he came 
from the other side of the Euphrates River), Jewish tradition 
has understood "other side" in the sense of an adversarial 
position: While the whole world adhered to polytheism, 
Abraham insisted on the truth of monotheism. 

"Can the whole world be wrong?"

In the fourth century B.C.E., the Greek Empire stretched from 
Macedonia to India, the whole "civilized" world. With Greek 
political domination came the hegemony of Greek culture and 
philosophy. The whole world accepted the Greek worldview 
with man at the center and the physical world as ultimate 
reality. A small band of Jews, known as the Maccabees, refused 
to succumb. They insisted that God was the source and Torah 
was the goal of life.

"Can the whole world be wrong?"

In the ancient world, including the advanced civilizations of 
Greece and Rome, infanticide was universally practiced. 
Newborns who were unwanted, because they were weak or 
handicapped-or girls, were killed by their parents or 
left to die of exposure. The Jews insisted that all life 
was sacred, and condemned infanticide as murder.

"Can the whole world be wrong?"

Compassion for the poor and infirm, built into the commandments 
of the Torah, was scorned as weakness by societies from 
ancient Greece to modern Nazi Germany.

"Can the whole world be wrong?"

From 1939-1945, the whole world claimed that immigration quotas 
made it impossible to accept Jews trying to flee from the Nazis. 
Even President Roosevelt, "a friend of the Jews," refused to 
order the bombing of the train tracks leading to Auschwitz, 
which would have saved the 400,000 Jews of Hungary. 

"Can the whole world be wrong?"

April, 2002: After a rash of suicide bombings which leave 127 
Israeli civilians (including babies and entire families) dead 
in a single month, the Government of Israel launches a 
defensive campaign against the terrorists and their infrastructure. 
Israeli forces uncover scores of bomb factories, with suicide 
belts already prepared, and large stashes of illegal munitions 
and rockets. The whole world insists that Israel has no 
right to defend itself.

"Can the whole world be wrong?"

This is where we Jews come in.

-----
Sara Levinsky Rigler graduated from Brandeis University 
magna cum laude. For fifteen years she practiced and 
taught Vedanta philosophy and meditation. She is the 
author of A Bridge of Dreams. She presently resides in 
the Old City of Jerusalem with her husband and two children, 
working as a book editor and writer.

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orld_Be_Wrong$.asp