c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) I often meet an unusual friend from Israel, Jeremiah (Jerry) ben Hilkiah, at a neighborhood coffee shop where we discuss current events. He’s a lot older (thousands of years older) than me, and more pessimistic about the future, so we balance out one another. I enjoy conversations with Jerry because he speaks a beautiful classical Hebrew that helps me maintain fluency in the language of the Bible.

In fact, he says he wrote a major book of the Bible, but that’s another story.

Two disturbing news items separated by exactly 60 years prompted our discussion. They were so ominous Jeremiah and I couldn’t stop talking about them.

Los Alamos, N.M., July 16, 1945

Headline: The Trinity Test Was a Spectacular Success

A 6-kilogram sphere of plutonium, compressed to supercriticality by explosive lenses, exploded over the New Mexico desert with a force equal to approximately 20,000 tons of TNT.

This report, by Col. Stafford Warren, chief of the Manhattan Project’s Medical Section, shows that the potential for radioactive fallout from the test was an important concern.

Warren’s report shows that fallout from the test exposed a family living 20 miles from Ground Zero to dangerous levels of radiation. General Leslie Groves’ office diary shows the radiation monitors became so concerned that they asked permission to talk to the family “to see how they feel.”

Beijing, July 15, 2005

Headline: Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs if U.S. Intrudes

China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan, a senior Chinese military official said.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” the official, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, said at an official briefing.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere, then we will be determined to respond,” he said. “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

Jerry spoke slowly between sips of hot black coffee allowing me time to take notes in English. Jerry was visibly upset by the Chinese general’s threat. I have never seen him so angry and agitated.

Even though nuclear weapons have been used only twice _ the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki _ Jerry was convinced there’s no guarantee they won’t be employed again either by a nation-state or by terrorists. He correctly pointed out that every weapon ever invented has eventually been used against human targets.

Here are some of Jerry’s remarks. Any similarities with the biblical book of Jeremiah, of course, are understandable. Any errors in translation are solely mine.

“Be astonished at this, and be horribly afraid … I pray to God for us … (if we are so self-destructive to use nuclear weapons), God will deliver the people, and such as are left in this city … into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek to kill us, and the enemy shall smite the people with the edge of the sword, the enemy shall not spare the people, neither have pity, nor compassion.”

I was stunned by Jerry’s dire prophecy, and wondered whether there was any realistic way to prevent a nuclear catastrophe.

He smiled and said, “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver the harmed from the hand of the oppressor … do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, and neither shed innocent blood.”

Now it was my turn to smile, “Jerry, you amaze me! You know governments don’t operate that way. They often go to war, shed lots of innocent blood, commit violent acts and certainly don’t execute much justice.”

His reply was chilling: “If (humans continue their violent ways including the use of nuclear weapons), the cities of the world shall become a desolation … we have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace … ”

As he finished his lukewarm coffee, I asked Jerry, “Is there any hope for the human family? Have we learned nothing during the past 60 years?”

“Do not be dismayed. … While the possible hurt (from nuclear war) is incurable, and the wounds grievous, God (with lots of help from humans) will not make a full end of the world; God has set before us the way of life and the way of death. … But it’s our choice.”

As Jerry left the coffee shop, he gave me a piece of paper containing his handwritten prayer for peace. He asked me to place it in the Western Wall on my next visit to Jerusalem, Jerry’s beloved hometown.

MO/JL RNS END

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Saint Leo University.)