[Avodah] Arab Character

[Yitzchok Levine]

The following is from the new translation of 
RSRH's commentary on Chumash Bereishis 16:14. You 
may read Rav Hirsch's complete commentary on this 
Pasuk at http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/arab_jew_bereishis.pdf

These two ideas, chai and roi — God is the absolute Master of space
and time, and He watches over and guides all — were gifts given to
the Arabian people by their matriarch and patriarch. All the Arabian
thinkers and philosophers worked at developing these ideas for mankind.
This work constitutes the essence of the Arabian people’s treasury
of ideas.

The story of the genesis of the Ishmaelite nation contains all the
elements of the Ishmaelite character, which later emerged from potentiality
into actuality. Cham’s sensuality, Hagar’s thirst for freedom,
Avraham’s spirit — these are the basic threads from which the Arab
national character was woven.

The Arab nation, descended from Avraham and Hagar, is one-sidedly
Jewish.

We, the Jewish people, have been assigned by God a dual mission:
(a) emunah, intellectual truths, which we are to absorb in our hearts and
through which our minds are to develop; (b) mitzva shaping — in harmony
with these truths — all of life according to the dictates of God’s
Will.

<snip>

Yishmael inherited from Avraham the sanctification of the intellect,
but he did not inherit from Sarah the sanctification of the body.
When a Jewish woman bears, nurses, and brings up her child, the
child’s body is sanctified from the very beginning.

I think that these ideas may help us to 
understand how a female Egyptian lawyer could 
suggest that  Arab men should  sexually harass 
Israeli women. See the MEMRI video clip at 
<http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1903.htm>http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1903.htm 


Yitzchok Levine 
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