Conflict, suffering, warfare. It seems that they are unavoidable. No sane person wishes for conflict, suffering or warfare, and though we may not have to accept them as inevitable, we do have to contend with them as a reality, as part of our existence. How we deal with their aftermath is entirely up to us. We can choose a path of darkness and live our lives in a constant state of despair, fear, or resignation. Or we can choose a path of light and resilience. We can mine our experiences with adversity for lessons that will make us stronger, and we can resolve to build a better world in which conflict, suffering, and warfare are less frequent, less costly, less deadly, or — in the perfect world we pray for — non-existent.

This week in history, President Abraham Lincoln exhorted the American people to choose a path of light, resilience, civility, and peace.

Between July 1 and July 3, 1863, the Union Army and Confederate Army fought a deadly and decisive battle in the fields of Gettysburg, PA. After the Union’s victory and after Robert E. Lee’s forces had retreated towards Virginia on the night of July 4th, 1863, over 50,000 casualties were to be counted among the estimated 170,000 soldiers who fought in that battle.

Four and a half months later, on November 19, 1863, the Gettysburg Cemetery Commission consecrated those fields, creating one of the earliest national cemeteries. Though he was not the keynote speaker at the dedication of the cemetery — that honor went to Edward Everett, the former president of Harvard College, former U.S. senator, former secretary of state, and one of the country’s leading orators, who delivered a two-hour speech by memory — it was Abraham Lincoln’s 275 words that we remember to this day:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

“But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln’s words call to mind the words of Pirkei Avot:

Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor,
V’lo ata ben chorim l’hibatil mimena.

It is not your duty to complete the work.

But neither are you free to desist from it.

In other words, after the guns go quiet, the healing begins, and it is up to us to build a more peaceful world.

This week we read in the Torah about two brothers, Jacob and Esau, who were already at odds with one another in utero. The younger stole the birthright from the older, and the older, holding the younger in contempt and vowing to take his life, instilled a fear in Jacob that would only abate decades later. But, indeed, the brothers reconciled and eventually stood together at their father’s grave. 

The story of Jacob and Esau could be any of our stories. We could be either of the brothers, and we could find ourselves contending with family members, life partners, friends, co-workers, and total strangers. When we are not our best selves, we can cause pain in ourselves and in others. We then must find ways forward, ways of reconciliation and healing.

Also in this story, we read about the struggle over water rights between Isaac and the Philistines in the wadi of Gerar. This tension was eased when Isaac put some distance between himself and the Philistines and dug a well at Rechovot, a place of ample space. In some ways, this small episode foreshadows much of Jewish history. We’ve been a people unwelcomed in strange lands, strange lands that we’d prefer to call home. Here, too, we’ve searched for and found ways to move on.

In the larger world we live in today, we are forced to contend with war, authoritarianism, terrorism, religious nationalism, and other threats to our safety and ways of being. This is as true for us in the United States and in Israel as it is for many peoples over all over the world. Indeed, the message of the Gettysburg Address is as salient for us as it was for the Union in 1983.

What Abraham Lincoln taught us eight score and two years ago is that we should not let ourselves be defined by our conflicts, but rather by the meaning we make in their aftermath. We will fight if we must, but it is incumbent on all of us to work for the betterment of our selves, our people, our nation, and our world. We may not finish the task, but nor are we free to desist from it.

Shabbat Shalom