A Message from Rabbi Maurice (January 2008)

I’m a coffee drinker. In big mugs with cream, in the form of a foamy latte, or served up Turkish style as a small cup of viscous black dye – wherever I am, a cup of coffee is often somewhere in sight. I like it strong, organic and Fair-Trade certified – that’s what makes it kosher to me.

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Three Cups of Tea

Recently I had the pleasure of reading a book about the other hot beverage that billions of people around the world love – tea. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, is an inspiring book that is about far more than tea. It tells the true story of how Greg Mortenson, a young American without direction in his life, went to Pakistan to try to climb K2, the second tallest peak in the world. He failed to reach the summit, lost his guide during his descent, and ultimately stumbled, emaciated and near death, into the unmapped village of Korphe where a kind local chieftain, Haji Ali, took him into his home and nursed him back to health.

Greg’s failure to summit K2 led to his life’s work. Deeply moved by the selfless hospitality of the Muslim community of Korphe, Greg promised to return one day and help them build a school for their children. To the surprise of many, he kept his promise. The book goes on to chronicle how Greg – who spent several months homeless and living out of his car in Berkeley – went on to found a non-profit called the Central Asia Institute (CAI). CAI’s mission is “to promote and provide community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Central Asia.” Working in rugged mountain areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the schools Greg helps build offer a broad, general education. These schools form a counter-weight to the fundamentalist Wahhabi madrassas that have proliferated, with Saudi funding, in these extremely impoverished and underserved regions. To date, CAI has created or supported 58 schools, 14 women’s vocational centers, and has 24,000 students, including over 14,000 girls.

Speaking to Pentagon officials after the U.S. war on Afghanistan began, Greg raised a question about how to succeed at fighting terrorism originating in this part of the world. “I supported the war in Afghanistan,” [he] said after he introduced himself. “I believed in it because I believed we were serious when we said we planned to rebuild Afghanistan. I’m here because I know that military victory is only the first phase of winning the war on terror and I’m afraid we’re not willing to take the next steps.” Mortenson went on to describe his witnessing of the high number of civilian casualties resulting from the American bombing of Afghanistan, and he warned that by failing to justify this “collateral damage” through a genuine rebuilding of the nation, the U.S. was sowing the seeds of further anti-American extremism.

“I’m no military expert,” Mortenson told the Pentagon brass. “But as best as I can tell, we’ve launched 114 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Afghanistan so far. Now take the cost of one of those missiles tipped with a Raytheon guidance system, which I think is about $840,000. For that much money, you could build dozens of schools that could provide tens of thousands of students with a balanced non-extremist education over the course of a generation. Which do you think will make us more secure?”

Jewish tradition has taught for centuries that under certain regrettable circumstances, defensive war is justified. But only as a last resort, and only when every effort to avoid bloodshed and seek peace has been tried. For Mortenson, the choice is ours – whether to leave Afghanistan in ruins and let extremists rebuild it, or whether to fulfill our promises and give the people of that country a sense that our invasion was ultimately for the good. We’ll reap the harvest of what we sew there in a matter of a few years. Our sages taught in the Mishnah, “The sword comes into the world for the delay of justice, and for the perversion of justice…” I hope we’re not too late. To read more or support Greg’s work, visit www.ikat.org.

Shalom,

Rabbi Maurice