Oxymorons

I remember learning the term “oxymoron” sometime in late elementary or middle school and delighting in finding examples.  Looking for them was seriously fun.  Once I learned the term, I saw them everywhere.
True Fiction
Sweet Sorrow
Civil War
Random Order
Old News
And, of course, the decidedly unkosher Jumbo Shrimp
              Oxymorons make you stop and think.  By putting two incongruous words together, they allow tension to exist in harmony.  Tense harmony, hmm.  

               One such example in the Jewish lexicon: Rodef Shalom.  You might know the phrase as the name of the biggest synagogue in Northern Virginia, or the Upper West Side or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.  The phrase “Rodef Shalom” (sometimes spelled Rodeph) means “Pursuer of Peace.”   I can understand why that’s an appropriate name for a peace-loving, community-oriented congregation.  But it’s also an oxymoron.

               The root of the word rodef is Resh, Dalet, Fay. That root appears over 100 times in the Hebrew Bible and, in nearly every case, it is connected to war, physical attack or sexual assault.  A person is called a rodef, if he or she plans to murder or maim another person.   The Torah tells us that, if a rodef is coming after us or another innocent person, we are required to try to stop the rodef, even if it means hurting or killing him or her. The text is explicit: we can’t use undue force but we can’t just sit back. None of this sounds very peaceful, does it?

                But the oxymoronic phrase “Rodef Shalom” or “Pursuer of Peace” also appears a handful of times in the Hebrew Bible and later writings.  In Psalms 34, we read, “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” In Pirke Avot 1:14, we read “Hillel would say: Be of the disciples of Aharon, loving peace, pursuing peace, loving the public and drawing them closer to Torah.  "Rodef Shalom" challenges us to think about how we can be warriors for peace.  How can we turn the instinct to charge ahead and make the destination peace? 

               An oxymoron challenges us to create harmony where there is tension.  It challenges us to stop and think about how two seemingly contradictory things can co-exist or, even better, enhance one another.  Middle East peace certainly seems like an oxymoron these days, but it needs to remain our goal. May we all be pursuers of peace.  And may our world, which feels so tense, so imbalanced, so out of sync, find a way to harmony.