A MOMENT OF JEWISH WISDOM: THE PORCUPINES AS A YARDSTICK ON WHY A NATION MUST LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, once taught a beautiful lesson using the example of porcupines in winter. The illustration originally comes from the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
Imagine a group of porcupines on a bitterly cold night. If they remain far apart, they freeze. If they move close together, their sharp spines prick and hurt one another. So what do they do? They stay together. They have to find a way of living close enough to keep warm, while enduring the occasional pain of one another’s prickles. Why? This is because the discomfort of being pricked cannot be compared with the danger of freezing to death.
Rabbi Sacks used this illustration to teach something profound about human relationships. We need one another, even though living together is not always easy. There is profound wisdom here for nations too.
I am a Jew living in Zambia. One of the most powerful things I have learnt from belonging to the Jewish people is what it means for a people to understand that, “WE BELONG TO ONE ANOTHER.” If, Heaven forfend, something serious were to happen to me here in Zambia because I am a Jew, the concern would not remain in Zambia. Very quickly, Jews elsewhere would begin asking, “What happened? Where did it happen? Who did it? Under what circumstances? Who must pay the price?” From Israel to South Africa, Britain, America and Jewish communities elsewhere, people who have never met me could nevertheless take an interest for one simple reason, a fellow Jew has been harmed. People must understand this about the Jewish nation. We stick together
Centuries of persecution taught us that when hatred comes for one Jew, other Jews cannot comfortably say, “That has nothing to do with me.” We learnt to take one another’s safety personally. In that sense, “YOU TOUCH ONE JEW, YOU TOUCH THE JEWISH PEOPLE.”
This does not mean that Jews agree about everything. Oh, we disagree! Put two Jews in a room and you may very quickly have three opinions. We differ politically. We differ religiously. We come from different countries and cultures. We argue about Israel. We argue about Judaism. Sometimes we even argue about how to argue, but underneath all those disagreements is something much deeper. We are one people.
Centuries of persecution taught the Jewish people this lesson at an unimaginable price. The Holocaust engraved it into Jewish historical consciousness. NEVER AGAIN. Never again must we become casual about hatred. Never again must we imagine that division has no consequences. Never again must we forget what can happen when hatred is cultivated until human beings cease seeing one another as human beings. A people that has suffered and refuses to learn has suffered twice.
This brings me home to Zambia. We too must learn to stick together. We will disagree politically. We will quarrel over policies. We will support different political parties. We will come from different provinces. We will speak different languages. We will belong to different tribes. We do not even have to love one another, BUT WE HAVE TO LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER.
A Bemba does not become less Zambian because he disagrees with a Tonga. A Tonga does not become less Zambian because she votes differently from a Lozi. A Lozi does not become less Zambian because he disagrees politically with an Ngoni. A Kaonde, Lunda, Luvale, Lenje, Tumbuka, Nsenga, Mambwe, Namwanga or any other member of our national family does not become less Zambian because of political disagreement. Our differences are real, but Zambia must be greater than all of them.
When Zambia is threatened, there should be no Bemba Zambia. No Tonga Zambia. No Lozi Zambia. No Ngoni Zambia. No Kaonde Zambia. No Lunda Zambia. No Luvale Zambia. There must only be, ZAMBIA. That is national consciousness. That is why any politician who deliberately builds a political strategy around tribal hatred is playing with something far more dangerous than an election. It is reckless.
You cannot burn the national house simply because you want to occupy one room called Government. Elections come and go. Governments come and go. Presidents come and go. Political parties rise and fall. The nation must survive them all.
A nation that refuses to learn from history eventually pays tuition in suffering. The Jewish people learnt through centuries of persecution that survival requires memory, solidarity and responsibility for one another. Zambia does not need to experience catastrophe before learning the same lesson.
We must learn from history while we still have the privilege of peace. So when our politics becomes cold, let us remember the porcupines. Yes, sometimes we prick one another. Yes, sometimes living together is uncomfortable. Yes, sometimes we disagree profoundly. Stay together anyway because whatever discomfort comes from learning to live together is infinitely smaller than the catastrophe that can come from learning to hate one another
We do not have to agree on everything. We do not have to belong to the same political party. We do not even have to like one another, but we belong to one Zambia. The porcupines understood something human beings sometimes forget, the cold outside is worse.
ONE ZAMBIA. ONE NATION. ONE FUTURE.
Yehudah Ben David
(Saviour Chishimba)
Orthodox Jewish Scholar