GEN608 The choice between conciliation and confrontation is open to every person embroiled in conflict. Those who truly seek conciliation must be ready to accept a compromise. Conflicts are endemic to human life. Indeed, they are desirable in the early years of a child’s growth. A ripening sense of ownership brings a child into conflict with his peers who attempt to divest him of favorite toys. In a subsequent stage of development, when a child begins to assert his rights, he will be in conflict with his parents. He may reject the diet offered by his mother or he may demand the privilege of the late bedtime granted to his older siblings. He will increasingly chafe at the regimen imposed by parental discipline. Most early conflicts are transitory. They are useful indices of a child’s mental growth and teach him the need for adjusting to situations which are not entirely to his liking. Conflicts which arise in adult life are frequently intractable, enduring, and highly damaging. National and racial conflicts run deep and endanger the peace. Domestic conflicts undermine the family structure. Business transactions are rife with dissensions which filled the air with vituperation and clog judicial dockets. Disparaging remarks whispered in social circles lead to enmity and fisticuffs. Most destructive of all are conflicts born of prejudice. Lacking a rational basis, they are not amenable to rational solutions. Even reasonable and restrained individuals cannot avoid conflicts. Each party to a controversy is convinced of the justice of his case, a conviction which blinds him to the merit of his opponent’s arguments. Few controversies fall within the category of a clearcut right versus an unquestioned wrong. In some instances, strife is the result of the collision of two well-established rights. In such cases, not even a King Solomon could come up with a fair solution. When demands go unanswered, nations may resort to war and individuals may seek justice in the courts. Resolutions imposed by wars and courts inevitably aggravate the hostility between the parties. A test of strength proves who is stronger but not who is right. Defeated nations never concede their cause has been unjust, and losing litigants continue to protest a miscarriage of justice. Judaism, with all its reverence for the law, is nevertheless aware of its shortcomings. A second-century Rabbi, wrestling with this problem, came to the conclusion that compromise by consensus is by far more preferable to imposed decisions dictated by the law, which grants all to the winner and nothing to the loser. What appears to be the earliest recorded compromise is reflected in the biblical account of the shift from God’s strict judgment prior to the Flood to a more yielding stand after the Flood. Initially, God was reported as saying, “The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth” [this verse]. After the flood, however, God said: “I will not again curse the ground on account of man, for the impulse of man’s heart is evil from his youth” Genesis 18:22. The Midrash reads into this verse a compromise which softened the original condemnation of mankind. God conceded that man was not entirely at fault. “If I had not created him with an evil impulse, he would not have rebelled against me” Genesis Rabbah 27. It was in the second century that the merit of arbitration in preference to the law was hotly debated. Does a judge, before whom an action has been brought for legal adjudication, have the right to suggest that the dispute be arbitrated? Judaic laws are based on the Bible and hence are a part of the religion. To relegate the law to a secondary position may reflect on the fairness and wisdom of the divine judgment. Rabbi Eliezer insisted that the law must take its course, regardless of the consequences Sanhedrin 6a. Rabbi Joshua b. Kochba took the opposite view. He based his opinion on a verse in Zachariah: “Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gate” 8:16. Commenting on the objective of truth and peace, he said: “Where there is strict justice there is no peace, and where there is peace there is no strict justice. What is that kind of justice with which peace abides? Sanhedrin 6b  Conciliation is most successful in the early stages of a disagreement. What is needed is a willingness to engage in dialogue and an open mind. A person who refuses to discuss differences acts unethically. When a next-door neighbor comes to your door to complain that your son’s drum practice drives him up the wall, don’t tell him to mind his own business and slam the door in his face. Invite him in and hear him out. You may discover that he has a just grievance and tell your son to tone down the percussion. In this manner your good-neighborly relations will not suffer. One moment of conciliation outweighs years of confrontation. BLOCH 70-2