If you’re a parent,
or a grandparent, you probably know that Beverly got a wonderful gift this
summer: a new playground at the Dane
Street Beach. It was built thanks to the efforts of Rich and Josie Marino, in memory
of their young daughter, Bella. Shortly after the playground opened, I had the
pleasure of standing with a group of parents as we watched our children climb
and swing and spin and do all of the other things kids do on a playground.
Of
course, as a parent, it makes you feel so happy, to see your children play that
way, with nothing to worry them or make them afraid. We want our kids to be
able to play in this innocent way; and as parents we also have to try to
anticipate anything that might threaten them.
So as we watched our children playing on that
beautiful summer day, someone brought up the issue of “stranger danger.” When
do you start warning your kids about strangers? And how best to do it?
One of the parents suddenly spoke up in a stern voice: “You know what I tell my son,” she said. “DON’T. TALK. TO. STRANGERS. Because they will KIDNAP you and they will KILL you!”
One of the parents suddenly spoke up in a stern voice: “You know what I tell my son,” she said. “DON’T. TALK. TO. STRANGERS. Because they will KIDNAP you and they will KILL you!”
The rest of us didn’t know what to
say. It’s tough to blame a parent for being protective of her child. But, isn’t
it possible to teach our kids to be cautious of unfamiliar people without teaching them to be utterly terrified? - So that
they will still do things like say something adorable to random adults on a
checkout line at the supermarket?
And the more I thought about it, the
more I realized: This dilemma never goes
away. We continue to face it as adults, as a community and as a nation.
We
face it when we see refugees from Syria fleeing for their lives. We want to
help them – but we may hesitate to do so, because we fear there might be
terrorists in their midst.
We
face it when we see police officers abusing their power – but fear that
attempts to restrain that abuse might result in danger to police officers, or
to us.
And
we face it as Jews when we stand-up for justice, based on our Jewish
principles, only to find ourselves sometimes attacked for being Jews. Yes, this is an infuriating
phenomenon that is happening with increasing frequency in our country,
especially on college campuses.
What,
you may be wondering, has any of this to do with Yom Kippur, this day of repentance, this day of teshuvah?
I
found myself drawn to this problem – which I call “stranger danger in the adult
world” – while studying the third movement of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s
poetical manifesto, the Four Fold Song. Those of you who were here for Rosh
Hashanah will remember it, I hope.
In any case, let’s have a look at it again.
Please follow along now,
as I read the first two paragraphs:
There is a person who sings the song
of the Self. He finds everything, his complete spiritual satisfaction, within
himself.
And there is a person who sings the
song of the Nation. She steps forward from her private self, which she finds
narrow and insufficiently developed. She yearns for the heights. She clings
with a sensitive love to the entirety of the Jewish nation and sings with it
its song. She shares in its pains, is joyful in its hopes, speaks with exalted
and pure thoughts regarding its past and its future, investigates its inner
spiritual nature with love and a wise heart.
Now, on Rosh Hashanah we discussed the Song of the Self and
how it differs from the discordant song of selfishness.
Then we discussed the song of the Jewish Nation, and how the ancient ties
shared by people in this sanctuary can lead to a unique intimacy and friendship
in the present. And we discussed our congregation’s plans to further increase,
and deepen, our relationships and connections.
This evening, I want to talk about how difficult it can be to sing the next song – the Song of Humanity –
in today’s world. Please follow along again, third paragraph:
There
is a person whose soul is so broad that it expands beyond the border of Israel.
It sings the song of humanity. This soul constantly grows broader with the
exalted totality of humanity and its glorious image. He yearns for humanity’s
general enlightenment. He looks forward to its supernal perfection. From this
source of life, he draws all of his thoughts and insights, his ideals and
visions.
Our
tradition teaches that all human beings have a spark of the divine within us,
that we are all b’tzelem Elohim, in
the image of God. This doesn’t necessarily
mean that God looks like us. The
image of God is within us. Our job is to manifest that presence in God’s
world, in large measure, through our relationships with others. When I treat
another with the dignity that the image of God deserves, when I am treated with
such dignity, the divine flows between us, and through us, and has an impact on
healing the world. That is Judaism in essence.
And
there is so much healing to be done
in this world! Elie Wiesel, whom we lost this year, may his memory be for a
blessing, wrote: “Human rights are being violated on every
continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to
their plight? . . . . As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will
not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with
anguish and shame. All these victims need to know they are not alone; that we
are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them
ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom
depends on theirs.”
That is why we must bear witness and
stand-up to all assaults against liberty and human
dignity: Racism, xenophobia, homophobia,
trans-phobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, terrorism and all expressions of hatred
and divisiveness – all things we are seeing too much in our country and
world. Our God is one of compassion and
justice and our duty is clear.
But
how are we to react when we step forward to do this work and are met with
resistance or rejection from those who ought to be our allies? For there is an
epidemic of anti-Semitism in America
today of a sort that I never experienced growing up. It is bold and insidious and often couched in
anti-Zionist ideology.
It tells
ludicrous lies such as: The 9/11 attacks
were planned by the Jews (this message was recently scrawled on a playing field
at Marblehead High School); or the Zionists are secretly, and systematically,
poisoning the children of Palestine.
Of
course, these are extreme examples that originate from extremist sources. But the
rise of a more mainstream anti-Semitism, particularly on college campuses, is
in a sense more disturbing – precisely because it is in the mainstream
Listen,
for instance, to the beginning of a recent essay by one Benjamin Gladstone, a
Junior at Brown University: “Last
semester, a group came to Providence to speak against admitting Syrian refugees
into this country. As the president of the Brown Coalition for Syria, I jumped
into action with my peers to stage a counterdemonstration. But I quickly found
myself cut out of the planning for this event: Other student groups were not
willing to work with me because of my leadership roles in campus Jewish
organizations.”
I wish I could tell you that this is an isolated incident,
but it is not. Last year at UCLA, when Sophomore Rachel Beyda was nominated to
the student council judicial board, which is equivalent to its supreme court, she
was asked: "Given that you
are a Jewish student and very active
in the Jewish community, how [will you be] able to [consider cases with] an
unbiased view?" Then, according to the
New York Times, “for the
next 40 minutes . . . the council tangled
in a debate about whether [Rachel Beyda’s] faith and affiliation with Jewish organizations,
including her sorority and Hillel . . . meant she would be biased in dealing
with sensitive governance questions. . . The discussion . . .
seemed to echo the kind of questions, prejudices and tropes —
particularly about divided loyalties — that have plagued Jews across the globe
for centuries.”
But
perhaps the most explosive example occurred two
months ago when the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of over 50
organizations including Black Lives Matter, released a policy platform with concrete
ways to address the very real systematic racism in our country.
Stacey Aviva Flint, a Jew of color,
wrote in Tablet magazine, in addition to “documenting
the grave issues facing Blacks today… To my surprise…the platform
crossed the Atlantic to denounce Israel as an apartheid state committing
genocide and advocated for boycotting it.”
Jewish leaders across the political
spectrum denounced this part of the platform.
It may
be tempting under these circumstances to simply throw up our hands and say: “To
heck with it! Why should I try to help people who misunderstand me, who may
even hate me?
Unfortunately,
that response simply does not jibe with the moral obligations of Judaism, so
eloquently described by Elie Wiesel and Rav Kook. Keeping our mouths shut and
“minding our business” would surely be our most comfortable option. But in the
words of Stacey Aviva Flint, “Comfort is not
an option . . . Jews must take risks to speak up for the powerless . . . . I choose discomfort.”
The leadership of the Jewish Community
Relations Council wrote, “As we dissociate ourselves from the Black Lives
Matter platform, we recommit ourselves unequivocally
to the pursuit of justice for all Americans, and to working together with our
friends and neighbors in the African-American community, whose experience of
the criminal justice system is, far too often, determined by race. We will not
allow this profoundly disturbing development to deter us from values and
principles we hold dear.”
But how,
then, do we stand-up for these values and principles? Rav Kook, Elie Wiesel and
Martin Buber all had the same answer, a single word: Relationships. We must
seek friendship – true friendship, of
the sort I discussed on Rosh Hashanah – with individuals willing to seek
friendship with us.
Let me reiterate: I am not reciting some touchy-feely notion I
came-up with on my own. On this, the holiest evening on the Jewish calendar, I
am conveying to you one of the most precious fundamentals of our creed.
“When we set ourselves apart from others,” writes
Martin Buber – perhaps the greatest Jewish philosopher of the twentieth century
– “we become mere egos. It is only when we set out to form relationships with others
that we become “human” in the best sense of that word. When we seek to be true friends to one another – that is when the smoldering fire of holiness
within us lights up in both ourselves and our friends.”
We
should do this for its own sake, not
for any reward. And yet, I might as well
tell you: The rewards can be very great.
I realized last May when our synagogue was vandalized with anti-Semitic
graffiti. As many of you know, we convened a meeting here in this sanctuary and
invited Robert Trestan from the Anti-Defamation League to lead a discussion
about anti-Semitism in our community.
I invited numerous Beverly clergy to
attend this meeting and five of them came: the Reverends Kent Harrop and Beth
Longhead from First Baptist; Reverend Kelly Weisman Asprooth-Jackson from First
Parish Unitarian-Universalist; Myozen Joan Amaral from the Zen Center; and Reverend
Manny Faria from St. Peter’s Episcopal. Rev. Tara Olsen Allen from Second
Congregational wanted to be here, but was unable to attend.
It was a nice turnout; but as we
stood together on the platform to sing Mattisyahu’s peace anthem, One Day, I
realized something: All of the pastors who stood-up for us that night were
individuals with whom I, and others in our congregation, had personal relationships. They’d been to
our house for dinner – in fact, most of them came to a Passover Seder that
Chuck and I hosted - and we’d been to their homes; or I’d shared long walks and
deep conversations with them; or we’d met together in common cause on behalf of
the needy.
Several of them spoke about this when
they expressed their support for our community. That’s not to say that other
Beverly clergy who weren’t here didn’t care about what happened. But there’s no doubt about it: Relationships matter.
I’d
like to say a few words, in particular, about our relationship with First
Baptist. For years now, we’ve held
Monday Night Suppers for the needy in their building. In recent years, many of
us have gone on Reverend Kent’s contemplative kayaking trips – to enjoy God’s
creation in silence. Earlier this year, Reverend Kent told me that he wanted to
host with me a public discussion on the meaning life – in a bar. Of course, I
was pleased by the offer. “But Kent,” I asked him, “why in a bar!?” His eyes lit up as he answered
me: “Because…I want to call it: A Rabbi
and a Baptist Minister Walk Into a Bar.”
The point is, the folks at First Baptist are our true friends, who are willing to stand
with us when we are under attack. Recently, I walked into their lobby and saw, prominently
posted on a bulletin board, a newspaper article, under the heading “Our Friends
at Temple B’nai Abraham.” It was the Salem News’ coverage of the dedication of
our Czech Memorial Torah Scroll last year.
And let me add
– this is important – when Rev. Kent came to our synagogue to stand with us
after we were vandalized, he brought along two large poster boards full of
beautiful handwritten messages from members of his congregation, expressing
their revulsion at the vandalism and their solidarity with our community. You
see: Relationships
matter.
Yom Kippur is a time to commit, or recommit ourselves. And
so I pledge to redouble my efforts to help this congregation – us - form
relationships that build bridges. Not long ago, I was pleased to join with
other local clergy in forming the Beverly Multi-faith Coalition. I was also invited by Mayor
Cahill to join the Beverly Human Rights Committee, along with the
Superintendent of Schools, the Chief of Police, and wonderful community leaders
representing Beverly’s diversity – all with the aim of combating hate and
bringing people together.
And
to this I add joining with ECCO, an Essex County interfaith community
organization. One of its missions is to bring
congregations together for things like potluck dinners, to forge relationships
across race, and class. To listen to
each other’s stories, to challenge each other’s worldviews when necessary, and
to work together to better our community and country.
I
hope you, too, will think about dedicating, or rededicating yourself to forming
new relationships – particularly, relationships with people who may fall out of
your comfort zone.
Shortly
before she was murdered in Auschwitz, Rabbi Regina Jonas -- the first ordained
female rabbi in history -- wrote that,
“Unselfish dedicated love toward
all [God’s] creations
[is what] upholds the world.”
Surely,
if she could cling fast to these ideals in the face of such inconceivable persecution
and suffering, we, too, can do so despite the insults and provocations that
will surely come our way.
Tomorrow we will consider the last
part of Rav Kook’s Fourfold Song, The Song of the World. But on this night of teshuvah, I ask us to consider how we will sing the song of
humanity in this new year. As we chant
the litany of sins in our liturgy, we know that they are in the plural “we”
because we are all responsible for each other, and we can each make a
difference in this troubled world by drawing more divinity into it.
Let us go forth, holding in our hearts Elie
Weisel’s most famous statement, which is both a prayer and a poem: “The
opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference.”
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