Hate Hate

“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.

Brotherly Hate

As brothers and sisters we are related.  From the same stock, same gene pool.  Seems like forever since we last lived peaceably under the same roof.  God, so much wasted time!

  Long ago, there was the proverbial parting of the ways.  You went in pursuit of your mission; I went on with mine.  Like all siblings there was rivalry, competition.  We fought for parental favor. We sought to impress them with our savvy, our looks, and our prosperity.  

Hurt and pain sprang from unhealed wounds.  Some of those wounds, untended, festered and became dangerous.  We fought like all relatives and, just like them, soon forgot what we were feuding about.  Seems that often the fight itself became the reason for continuance of the rivalry.

There are those who say the familial “parting of the ways” is as old as Cain and Abel.  Certainly the root of brothers vying for the love of their parents is as ancient as Eden.  We are no different.

It has been my hope that time would bring maturity to us and the realization that siblings can not just love one another (we already do) but allow for legitimacy of the other.  I can validate your goodness, brilliance and gifts while losing none of my own stature.  You can return that appreciation.  It is odd that we “love our neighbor” more when they don’t live in our neighborhood.  But we have lived long together.  And hated every minute of it.  There is no escaping that.

“Ah,” you say, “those days are long gone.”  Yes, you are right, brother.  They seem all but a dim memory now.  We have found each other’s arms after a long estrangement.  There has not just been rapprochement but something far deeper, more meaningful.  We are in process of re-discovering the family love so long absent.  Mom and dad would be proud.  Perhaps they smile down on us from above as their children have found one another.

Still, every now and again it is good to remember the old rivalry.  This allows us to bask in the realization that those days are gone.  We can dialogue, break bread with one another, find words of shared worship, and even gently chide each other.  We have grown.  We have fully matured and now enjoy a rich relationship bearing more gifts than we could ever imagine.

I am sorry that every now and again someone forgets the great progress we have made.  I guess they feel more comfortable in a contest of words and legitimacy (‘I’m better than you are’ kind of stuff) than a road to greater love.  I will not let those family members stand in our way, though.  And neither will you.  After all, what we have discovered is the most valuable gift of all.

The Dance of Love and Hate

All life is a dance.  We choose a partner (or series of partners) and begin the intricate pattern of steps. If it is a good match, we compliment one another.  As one takes a step forward, the other moves back.  There is a comfortable synchronicity when both are in harmony with one another.  A bad match is when both partners move in opposite directions at the same time. 

A dance instructor shared with me that the best, most fluid, dancers anticipate the other’s moves and move with them.  These are the pros.  They seem to just skate across the floor.

There are some, I learned, that continually vie for the spot of ‘leader’.  In that dyad, the dance more closely resembles a wrestling match than a rhumba.

I strongly suspect, though, that all dancers experience times when they feel an urgent deed to break out of the set mould.  The follower becomes frustrated and wants a chance to lead.  Or, the leader needs some relief from the onerousness of leading.

This is the dance of life.  It is a series of punctuated moments of progression and regression; of love and hate, proximity and distance.  In every love relationship there is movement toward deeper, more mature love and, then, withdrawal.  One psychoanalyst (Monica) believes that we all do this rhythmic dance in order to preserve ourselves, protect our fragile ego.

 Hopefully, the movement forward will always be more progressive than the steps taken backing away.

Over the past few years incredible progress has been made between Israel and the Palestinians.  Who would have thought that even a tenuous peace was possible after so many decades of bile and hatred?   It was not so long ago we viewed each other as demons.  Now we look at one another with hope.

Who would have thought that Birmingham Alabama would have a black mayor?

Who could have imagined rapprochement with our former Cold War enemies?       

Or reconciliation in Northern Ireland?

Progress does not come without the possibility of regress.   “Two steps forward, one back,” so to speak.  If this backward step is a necessary step for movement toward a greater, more secure peace we will mourn our dead and then celebrate the living.