“The Bible tells is to love
our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are
generally the same people,” wrote G.K. Chesterton.
It is part of the human condition that we are expected to
differentiate between that which is toxic and that which is merely distasteful. They are often confused. For example, one witness to World War II
noted, “We ought to have declared war on Germany the moment Mr. Hitler’s police
stole Einstein’s violin.” Compare that
with the historical fact that after the Nazis annexed Austria, Czechoslovakia,
and Poland before declaring war on France and England the United States did
nothing until Pearl Harbor was attacked.
And, as you know, Jews were being gassed and thrown into ovens
daily. It is distasteful to take away a
violin. It is toxic to commit atrocities
and destroy life.
We must know the difference between them.
In hindsight it is easy to know what was benign and what
was evil. We all recognize that the mass
murders, rapes, and brutalizations of the Tutsis in 1994 Rwanda were evil. But there were early warning signs that
tensions between the tribes were escalating.
We chose to ignore them as insignificant.
The same with Pol Pot’s murderous rampage in the 1970’s
where one and one half million people were murdered. It all started with ideology, only a
philosophic idea. Pinochet, Amin,
Mugabe, Milosevic, Hitler and Stalin all proceeded with their annihilation of
innocent people, unchecked because we thought them wrongheaded but not so toxic
as to require intervention.
We do an ineffective job of discriminating between the
toxic and distasteful.
There is a Russian story about an Armenian grandmother on
her deathbed. Her children gathered to
hear her final words.
“Take care of the Jews,” she wheezed.
“Mom, we are Armenians.
Why take care of the Jews?”
“First they come for the Jews and then they come for the
Armenians.”
That is why we must be ever vigilant. It is foolish to protect our home while our
neighbor is being attacked thinking, “at least I am safe.”
In our world there are no separations. Like a virus, corruption and evil spread and
they can be easily ignored by saying to ourselves, “They are meaningless. This will pass.” Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. Can we afford to take the chance?
As Jews we are charged with a unique task. Besides bringing to the world the notion of
there being a singular force in the world, G-d, we have also been given the
noble task to teaching that all human life is sacred. We are vested with the imprimatur of being
cast in the “image of G-d” with full knowledge that all of humanity is
related. That makes us responsible for
one another. What remains is for us to
be responsive to one another to act and not simply empathize.
It is no easy task to determine whether we are facing a
time when hateful words and evil acts are coming with greater frequency and
acceptance and therefore we must push forward to become involved … or whether to step aside and wait for this to
pass.
I am concerned.
Daily, I watch for news of more bomb threats against Jewish institutions
and more anti-Israel pronouncements. I
am appalled at the attacks on Mosques and Muslims. I grow concerned with each passing day with
what I see as mounting world xenophobia.
As you will remember, this is one of the listed sins on Yom Kippur. We are putting up walls, real and imagined,
at a world that we increasingly see as hostile, dangerous and against us.
We are called as a people to decry evil and fight against
it. This is the basis of ethical
monotheism. We are also commanded to be
compassionate to the stranger as once “you were strangers in Egypt.”
Along with motivated clergy and laity in our community I am
working to forge an alliance against hate.
It is called Justice for All. Watch for it on the news, or better, ask
to become involved.
